


12 drafts of All I Ever Wanted

by DragonsPhoenix



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, To Be Edited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonsPhoenix/pseuds/DragonsPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My writing group is putting together an anthology of stories relating to the same character, Infinity Blake, who works as an orderly at a nursing home. </p><p>When I first learned about Deliberate Practice (in Colvin's Talent is Overrated), he used the Bronte sisters as an example. They practiced by creating dozens of little books, basically doing the same thing over and over again to learn how to get it right. That's what I'm playing with here. Each month I'll work on another draft of this story, playing with the elements to see what works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January's draft

**Author's Note:**

> The actual initial draft was going to be a series of letters but I had no good reason for the patient to have collected letters only relating to the career she didn't get to have and the career she kept her daughter from having.
> 
> Notes for more drafts:
> 
>   * same story but from PoV of daughter 
>   * focus is on Infinity's relationship with his own mother, through the lens of Mrs. Dowd and her daughter. At the end, Infinity asks Prudence (cook) to teach him to prepare his mother's favorite dish. Note: this version will need scenes of conflict between Infinity and his mother 
> 


The woman in 203 was creepy. Infinity couldn’t say he actually disliked her. It was more that he felt sorry for her although truth be told he didn’t like being around her. He never knew, when he walked through the door, whether she’d recognize him or not. Being mistaken for her father or husband, that was bad enough, but when she addressed him as her sister or her daughter, that was downright disturbing.  
  
And so he approached the doorway with trepidation. “Julia, is that you?”  
  
“No ma’am. I’m an orderly here to bring you down to breakfast.”  
  
The third time Mrs. Dowd had gotten lost on her way to the cafeteria, <?> had decreed that the old woman was to be … escorted was the term used … to and from meals. Ramon had won the coin toss and so Infinity was stuck taking her back and forth three times a day.  
  
“Julia, you get that nasty chemistry set off of my table. I’ve told you before I won’t stand for that nonsense in my dining room. All those poisons and vapors right there where we eat. You trying to kill us all?”  
  
Infinity eased the wheelchair up beside her bed.  
  
“I don’t care if your aunt May did give it to you. It’s not as if you’ll ever really understand it. Science isn’t for girls. And anyway, what good did it ever to her. It didn’t help her find a husband not did it? You want to end up an old maid too? You go put that junk away and I’ll teach you to make a proper chocolate mousse.”  
  
“It’s me, Mrs. Dowd. Infinity Blake. I’m the orderly here at Ravenwood Manor I’m here to take you to breakfast.” He’d found it was better to ease her out of her delusions before moving her in and out of the bed.  
  
“What? What?” Even though she’d been living there for three months, when she glanced around she looked lost, as if she’d never seen the room before. He waited as she got her bearings.  
  
“You’re that Blake boy.” She never called him Infinity even though she was perfectly happy to call the rest of the staff by their first names.  
  
“Yes ma’am. I’m here to take you to breakfast.”  
  
As he pushed her down the hall, she complained about the menu. “What kind of nonsense is that? Offering chocolate mousse for breakfast.”  
  
Infinity didn’t bother telling her that chocolate had never been on the breakfast menu. She’d most likely have forgotten by the time they’d made it to the cafeteria. 

  
  
When he came to pick her up for lunch, she recognized him right off and chatted with him all the way down to the cafeteria although she was a bit out of time. She kept going on and on about how her daughter Julia had gotten into the CIA by which she didn’t mean the real CIA but the Culinary Institute of America. As far as he could tell, at that moment, she honestly didn’t remember that Julia Reed was so famous a chef that even he, an orderly who had no interest in cooking whatsoever, knew her name.  
  
At dinnertime, Infinity heard Mrs. Dowd grumbling from the far end of hall <confusing, who’s down the far end of the hall?> <Watch The Fisher King for that homeless woman in the hospital for a better idea how this woman might speak.> “Who the hell does he think he is, firing me?” Her voice pitched down, sounding as if she were mocking a male speaker. “It’s not a firing little lady. You’re getting let go along with all the other ladies. Now that the men are back from the war, well, they need the jobs to take care of their families. You can understand that, can’t you? Once you start having babies, you want your husband to have a good paying job, right? Can’t do that if you women are taking up all the work.” Her voice shifted back to her normal tone. “Well fuck you. Not a job for a lady? I was the best welder you had and you just let me go so some slob of a man could have his job back? Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”  
  
Shouts of “fuck you” started coming from other rooms and Infinity raced down the hallway to get to Mrs. Dowd before she set off a riot. As soon as he’d entered the room, she started screaming at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”  
  
Leaving the wheelchair to one side, he stepped toward her slowly. “Now Mrs. Dowd. You want your dinner, don’t you? It’s roast turkey night and I know mashed potatoes are your favorite.”  
  
“Fuck your mashed potatoes. You idiot man coming in here stealing jobs away from decent women. All I ever wanted to do was weld one gate, just one, but they laid me off just because the damned men came home. Go on, little lady. Go off and get married, make more men to replace the ones we lost in the war. Ha! If we’d lost that many men, I’d have been able to keep my job.”  
  
“I’m real sorry about your job Mrs. Dowd but you’d be retired by now anyway so why don’t you let me take you down for dinner?”  
  
As she kept shrieking “Get out. Get out. Get out!” her voice raised in pitch. Infinity backed out of the room, leaving the wheelchair behind. Mz. Marten <Consuela> was <where?>. “Ma’am? It’s Mrs. Dowd. She won’t come down for dinner.”  
  
“Dr. Anderson <name of psychiatrist at the Manor?> wants her out of her room for her meals. She says socialization is better for her mental health.”  
  
“Yeah, I get that but she’s screaming and won’t let me near her.” <Actually the shouting of all the patients should have drawn Consuela up to the hallway.>  
  
“Right, you go get her a tray. I’ll calm her down.”  
  
By the time Infinity returned with a tray, the other patients in the hall had left for the cafeteria. “Ma’am? I’ve got your dinner.”  
  
She said nothing as he came into the room and set the tray before her but he could see that she was still fuming inside. “You okay Mrs. Dowd? You need anything else?”  
  
“What the hell is this? Cold potatoes, congealed gravy. You expect me to eat this crap?”  
  
Penelope had told him to cover the dish before carting it upstairs. He should have listened. “I’m sure it’s fine, Mrs. Dowd. It just came out of the kitchen. It can’t be cold yet.”  
  
“Can’t be cold yet? Ha! You see how cold it is!” With that, she thrust her hands right into the mashed potatoes, picked up a glob, and threw it at him. Luckily she didn’t have that much force to her throw and it fell far short.  
  
“Now, now, Mrs. Dowd, you just calm down.”  
  
“Calm down? I’ll give you calm down.”  
  
The plate, food flying off, whizzed past, just missing him, although the turkey covered gravy didn’t. She was cackling when Infinity came back with a cleaning supplies. “Good, lets see a man clean up after a woman for a change.” He was definitely going to have to figure out how Ramon cheated at coin toss.  
  
<NB: Nursing home shifts are traditionally the day: 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., evening: 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., and night: 11 p.m. until 7 a.m.  In some cases 12 hour shifts of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. are used to meet the odd hours needed to fill the weekend. Soooo, he’d be doing lunch and dinner?>  
  


  
At lunch the next day Mrs. Dowd recognized him, which was unfortunate because she obviously remembered her rage from the evening before and felt embarrassed. Infinity acted as professionally as he could to help ease how bad she felt. By dinner she no longer recognized him but was in a much better mood. “May! I got the job! Mr. Miller said with the men gone that he needs more good workers. I can put in a good word for you.”  
  
After the awkwardness of lunch, Infinity was in no rush to break Mrs. Dowd out of her delusion.  
  
“Oh, graduate school? Physics? You could be making good money now. What do you want to go and do that for?”  
  
By now the wheelchair was set by her bed. “Mrs. Dowd? I need you to get into the chair now. Time for lunch.”  
  
“Well, it’s your life but I think this whole grad school thing is a mistake.” <When the men come back, what good’s a graduate degree in physics gonna do you?>  
  
“Mrs. Dowd?”  
  
He could tell when she recognized him because she looked away but she did stand up. “I think I’ll walk today.”  
  
“Okay, but I’m gonna have to go with you.”  
  
She ignored him all the way to the cafeteria but that was alright because she didn’t get lost.  
  


  
  
The next morning, over an hour before breakfast, he found her wandering the halls, holding a crumbled piece of writing paper in one fist, and crying. “Mrs. Dowd? You okay?”  
  
She looked up and waved the fist holding the paper. “How could he?”  
  
“I’m not sure who did what ma’am.” She looked more hurt than angry that morning, and he didn’t seem any better, if anything it was worse, but he thought she might be easier to manage if she wasn’t raging. “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable in your room?”  
  
“Look at this. Look at this!” She straightened out the paper and held it before him. Infinity saw a listing of meals for the week. Was she still going on about the chocolate mousse?  
  
“I’m not sure what it is you’re showing me, ma’am.”  
  
“This.” She stabbed a finger at the middle of the paper and continued on as if reading out the words. “Bea, honey, what did you go and do a damned fool thing like that for? Welding? That’s no work for a lady. I’m sure there’s plenty of secretarial work. I know we all have to make sacrifices for the war effort but the thought of your delicate hands doing the grunting work of a man, well it just makes me sick. I told Jimmy about it the other night, the guy we call Donkey because he’s stubborn as a mule, and he said I was going to find myself engaged to a she-man if I didn’t watch out. You don’t want to embarrass me in front of the guy, do you?”  
  
All Infinity saw on the page were lists of meals. He wasn’t sure what to say.  
  
“Oh Ma, don’t you see? I’m making a difference, helping out with the war effort, protecting our boys on the front. I’m finally doing something worthwhile and all <fiance’s name?> can see is that my hands might get roughed up. It’s like he doesn’t know me at all.”  
  
“Um, ma’am? I’m not your mother. I’m one of the orderlies at the home. Why don’t we get you back to your room?”  
  
“Ma, not you too! You think I want to sit around typing memos from men to cowardly to be on the front when I could be building ships to back up our boys?”  
  
Infinity put one hand around her back and started leading her back to her room. “Mrs. Dowd, why don’t we go have a nice sit down. It’s such a pretty morning, with the sun just rising. Why don’t you look out the window a bit until it’s time for breakfast?”  
  
“If he thinks I’m giving up my job for busy-work, he’s got another thing coming.”  
  
Mrs. Dowd kept muttering but it was more to herself than to Infinity and she allowed him to settle her in her room by the window. <maybe it should be the sun setting? In her mind she’s at the beginning of something but in reality at the end of her life so it might work either way.>  
  


  
  
**Scene** : her excitement at getting the job; very psyched because it pays better than secretarial (already touched on this)  
  
**Scene** : talking to her sister about losing her job and how disappointed she feels (already touched on this)  
  


  
Infinity, returning from fixing the toilet in <?>’s room, heard crying coming from Mrs. Dowd’s room. He peeked in to see her sitting up in her bed, hands over her eyes, as she cried. He stood there wondering if he should say anything. Maybe she’d prefer to be left alone, to not be seen in such pain or maybe he should get Dr. <?>. She could administer a sedative or something, something to calm the patient.  
  
“Mrs. Dowd? You alright? You want something to help you relax?”  
  
She laughed at their, not a laugh of delight but a laugh full of scorn. “Right. No more than I deserve to be drugged into a stupor.”  
  
Stupor? Infinity hadn’t quite thought of it that way before. Why be sad if you didn’t have to be? “I could get you a glass of water,” he offered.  
  
“I lied to her, you know.”  
  
Lied? To who? “Uh, no ma’am, I didn’t know that.”  
  
“It was that damned chemistry set. I told her the dog knocked it over. I threw it out. I smashed every glass vial and dumped the chemicals down the sink. I worried for weeks afterwards that I’d done damage to the pipes.”  
  
Infinity didn’t know what to say.  
  
“All I’d ever wanted was to weld one gate, to create one thing beautiful and lasting in this world. If I couldn’t have that, why should Julia have her damned science? <another scene: learning her sister had won some science award; this triggers her destroying the chemistry set.> I felt bad right away but there was nothing I could do. All the sticks and stones in the world wouldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again once he’d been shattered. God, to see her little face fall when I told her. I could have just kicked myself.”  
  
Mrs. Dowd fell down onto the bed and turned her back to him. Infinity could hear her crying. He slipped quietly out of the room.  
 Scene: Julia happy with her life; Infinity says mother had been talking about an old chemistry set.  
Infinity never told his mother about the day he met Julia Reed. His mother would have wanted an autographed cook book or possibly even a full meal off of the woman. He’d been heading down the hall to replace a lightbulb when the woman, Mrs. Reed that is, sought him out. “I hear you’ve been taking care of my mother.”  
  
“Well, I take her down to her meals, sure.”  
  
“This is for you.” She handed him an envelope.  
  
“Oh, well, um, thank you.” He wondered if he should open it in front of her or wait until later.  
  
“How’s she doing, when I’m not here?”  
  
Crazy as a bessie bug probably wan’t what she wanted to hear. “She’s okay. I mean, she doesn’t always know who I am, and, well I guess she’s been a bit agitated lately.”  
  
“Agitated?”  
  
Shit, hadn’t Dr. Anderson told them not to discuss patients with their relatives? “Well, not agitated maybe, concerned. She’s been thinking about some old chemistry set. She seemed real upset that it had been damaged.”  
  
Mrs. Reed grinned a nostalgic grin. “Oh, my old chem set. I’d forgotten about it.”  
  
“Mrs. Doud seemed real upset it had gotten damaged. Like that kept you from exploring science as a career opportunity. <yeah, and I have to work that in>”  
  
Mrs. Reed laughed at that. “Because I’m not successful enough as a chef?”  
  
Infinity laughed with her. It was sort of funny, given Julia Reed had her own cooking show and all. But added, “I think she felt it had limited your options when you were younger.”  
  
“Huh,” Mrs. Reed replied. “I’d never thought of it that way. Actually, it’s sort of funny. I’m teaching a class over at George Mason, “The Science of Cooking”.”  
  
“Oh, so you did take up science in college?”  
  
“No, It’s a two teacher class. I bring the cooking part. The other professor, Dr. Diane Grant, brings the chemistry.”  
  
“Oh.” Infinity thought about how upset Mrs. Dowd had been that her daughter hadn’t had the chance to study science. “That’s too bad that you couldn’t bring in the science bit yourself.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know. I enjoy learning what Diane brings to the class. It might have been interesting to study science in college, but I can’t imagine enjoying it more than I do cooking.”  
  
“So you like what you’re doing now?”  
  
“Can’t imagine anything better.”


	2. 1.2

Characters  
Beverly (Bev) Dowd  
Julia Reed - Bev’s daughter  
Bev’s sister / Julia’s aunt  
Consuela  
Infinity Blake  
Ramon  
Abby and Martha (Brewster)  
Ed - fiance

Scene: chemistry set, table  
The woman in 203 was creepy. With that thought, Infinity could hear Dr. Anderson correcting him. “You shouldn’t dehumanize these patients that you’re working with Infinity. She’s more than a room number. Use her name.”

Fine. Mrs. Dowd, Beverly but everyone calls me Bev, she was creepy. It wasn’t that Infinity actually disliked her. It was more that he felt sorry for her although, truth be told, he didn’t like being around her. He never knew whether she’d recognize him or not. It was bad enough, being mistaken for her father or her husband, but when she addressed him as Julia or Donna, well, that was downright disturbing. As he stepped into the doorway, Infinity felt like he was facing a monster, a zombie or vampire or something, but all he saw was a frail old woman, dressed for the day in a blouse and pants, sitting in her chair by the window. 

“Julia, is that you?”

“No ma’am. I’m an orderly. They sent me to bring you down to breakfast.”

The third time that Mrs. Dowd had gotten lost on her way to the cafeteria, Consuela had decreed that the old woman was to be … escorted was the term she used … to and from meals. Unfortunately Ramon had won the coin toss, which meant Infinity was the one stuck making sure Mrs. Dowd got to the cafeteria on time. 

“Julia.” Mrs. Dowd had continued on as if he hadn’t identified himself as an orderly. “You get that nasty chemistry set off my table. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times I won’t stand for that nonsense in my dining room. All those poisons and vapors right there where we eat. You trying to kill us all?”

Infinity eased the wheelchair up to next to her chair. Mrs. Dowd could walk but it was faster to push her in the chair. 

“I don’t care if your aunt did give that set to you. It’s not as if you’ll ever understand it. Science isn’t for girls. And anyway, what good did science ever do for Donna? It didn’t help her find a husband, now did it? You want to end up an old maid? You go put that junk away and I’ll teach you how to make a proper chocolate mousse.”

“It’s me, Mrs. Dowd, Infinity Blake. I’m an orderly here at Ravenwood Manor. I’m here to take you to breakfast.” He’d found it was better to ease her out of her delusions before getting her to move.

“What? What?” Even though she’d been living there for three months, when Mrs. Dowd glanced around she looked lost, as if she’d never seen the room before. He waited as she got her bearings.

“You’re that Blake boy.” She never called him Infinity even though she was perfectly happy to call the rest of the staff by their first names.

“Yes ma’am. I’m here to take you to breakfast.”

As he pushed her down the hall, she complained about the menu. “What kind of nonsense is that? Offering chocolate mousse at breakfast.” Infinity didn’t bother telling her that chocolate had never been on the breakfast menu. Most likely she’d have forgotten by the time they’d made it to the cafeteria.

Just outside of the cafeteria, Infinity stopped to let Mrs. Dowd out of the wheelchair. Unfortunately he didn’t manage to whisk the chair out of sight fast enough. “Mr. Blake.” Consuela had seen the wheelchair.

“Ma’am.”

“As was explained in your , ambulatory patients must be encouraged to walk. While this will be the final nursing home for many of them, we don’t want them losing abilities any sooner than they have to.”

“Well, you see, I’ve been working on the plumbing in 217 and it was getting late and I didn’t want Mrs. Dowd to miss out on breakfast completely.”

“Penelope will hold breakfast until everyone has eaten.”

“Well, yes ma’am, that she will.” But she’d bitch up a storm about it too. 

“And so the wheelchair was necessary, why?”

“Uh, I guess it wasn’t ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

“Let’s see that it doesn’t.” 

 

Lunch was easier. When Bev was in her right mind, she’d be in the > room with some of the other patients. He could most likely trust her, then, to follow the others into the cafeteria. When he listened in, she was talking about her daughter. “Julia has just been accepted into the CIA. That’s not the one you’re thinking of, but the Culinary Institute of America. Julia’s always adored cooking, even when she was a young girl, it was pretty much the only thing she ever wanted to do.”

Infinity watched as Vinnie rolled his eyes, but not at the only thing Julia had ever wanted to do bit. Everyone believed that because Julia Reed was so famous even Infinity knew her name. She had her own cooking show and everything. The annoyance was more that Bev thought her daughter was just starting in cooking school. Also, Infinity was pretty sure she’d told that story to them before, probably more than once. He watched as Penelope’s gong sounded through the house, announcing lunch. Bev followed along with the others. Good. He had a list of tasks a mile long to get done that afternoon.

Scene: Julia Reed gossip  
Infinity, unexpectedly, did not have to take Mrs. Dowd to lunch. About a hour beforehand, he found Miss Abby and Miss Martha, peering through the curtains out onto the porch. They didn’t look much like sisters - Abby, shorter and fatter than her lean sister, had dark hair to Martha’s blonde - but they went around together everywhere. “Isn’t that nice, how that Julia visits her mother each weekend,” Abby said.

“Oh, yes, it is awfully good of her to take the time. I don’t know how these young people do it all. Working, raising children, and caring for the home. I’m sure we never were that busy.”

“But that’s not true at all, Martha. We had our little charities. They kept us plenty busy I’m sure.”

“Well, if you say so.”

When Abby turned and saw him, she exclaimed with delight. Both of the sisters seemed to be pretty much delighted by everything. “Infinity. How are you dear boy?”

“Uh, fine Miss Abby.” He looked through the window to see a woman talking with Mrs. Dowd. They looked a lot alike, although the woman was a good twenty years younger. Her dark hair, cut into a bob, and her clothes, which seemed casual but looked somehow pricey at the same time, suggested where the money for Mrs. Dowd’s room came from. The gossip around the manor was that she didn’t have that much herself. 

“We should let them have their privacy.” Miss Martha took his arm and led him away from the window as if she and Miss Abby hadn’t just been peering out at them. 

“I know it’s natural to be curious about famous people, dear, but it’s rude to be nosy.”

“Famous?” Infinity asked.

Abby gave him an astonished look. “You don’t know Julia Reed?”

“Now Abby,” Martha said. “It’s not like when we were girls. Not everyone knows everyone else.”

“But she’s famous,” Abby replied. “She’s got that cooking show on the television.”

“Cooking show?” Infinity asked.

“Only on a local channel,” Martha said. 

“Oh you hush,” Abby replied. “Julia, she’s a chef, and she’s working with, oh what was that woman’s name? Dr. Dianne, um, well I don’t quite recall, but Julia whips up dishes and Dr. Dianne explains the science behind cooking them. The banter between them is delightful, much more interesting than that trash you see on cable nowadays.” 

“And she, Julia, is Mrs. Dowd’s daughter?”

“Well of course dear. Julia Reed. She visits every weekend. Haven’t you seen her before?”

The woman, Julia, looked vaguely familiar. Infinity had seen her around and he’d had a vague idea that the old ladies thought she was famous, but he hadn’t paid much attention. Julia Reed. Oh, hey. “Julia.”

“What’s that?” Abby asked.

“You said her name is Julia.”

“So you have seen her show,” Abby added. 

“Um, sure,” he lied. Julia. Did that make her the Julia with the chemistry set? And if it was here, why wasn’t she the one explaining science on that cooking show?”

Scene: excited about new welding job (Monday, dinner - Infinity has Sundays off and works a later shift on Monday) AND cousin in grad school  
When Infinity had first started at Ravenwood Manor, he’d been told that he, as the low man on the totem pole, might be working both days of the weekend, but it turned out that Ramon was willing to work Sundays. “Church with my mama, papa, three sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins,” Ramon had told him later. “No way, man. I’d rather be here working.

On Monday, Infinity had what was called the evening shift even though it started well before the sun had set. As he jogged up the porch steps, Infinity saw Mrs. Dowd sitting well past old Duncan and talking to, well, as far as Infinity could tell she was talking to herself. 

“Graduate school? Physics? Caro, women don’t go to graduate school, much less for physics. You’ve been there long enough to get your M-R-S degree. I mean, you don’t have a fella yet, but there all off overseas. What good’s more college gonna do you? Come work with me in the factory. The pay’s great, better than that small change we get for secretarial work and certainly better than anything you’d be getting as a student. Do they even pay you for that or are you just building up more debt? Come work as a welder for now. You can build up your savings and go back to college later, if you really want to.”

Mrs. Dowd stopped talking and looked as if she were listening to someone else speak. There was no one else talking.

“Opportunity?” she continued. “What do you think you’ll do with a Masters degree in physics? Welding, now that’s a real job. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to look at something and think that I made that. Someday I’m gonna make a gate, a little iron gate, or maybe go into business welding on residential properties after the war.”

“She never got to work on that gate.”

“Huh?” It had been Duncan who’d spoke. “That Mrs. Dowd, she’s always going on about that gate she wanted to weld, ‘one little gate’ she says. She never go the chance. Once the lads came home from the war, well, the ladies weren’t needed at the factories. A lot of ‘em were upset about that but I can see why noways. What women gonna do outside of the house anyway. Better for ‘em to stay at home and raise babies. They start in on men’s jobs and then what do you got? All those kids today who run around playing video games all the time and don’t hardly have a life at all, that’s ‘cause their mommas were too busy working to raise ‘em. That’s what you get.”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Ah, what do you know.” The man turned his back on Infinity and didn’t speak again.

“Well, Caro,” Mrs. Dowd was saying, “if you want to waste your time with science, you know I’m not going to be the one to stop you. I think it’s a foolish notion, I sure do, but you’re going to do what you want no matter what anyone else says.”

“Infinity.” Consuela was calling from inside the manor. “You’ll be late if you don’t get a move on.”

“Yes ma’am.” Infinity dashed through the door, leaving Mrs. Dowd and Duncan behind.

Scene: CIA, proud mother (Tues, breakfast)  
The next morning Mrs. Dowd both recognized him and also had her mind in another time. Infinity hadn’t quite figured out how that one worked, but she was in a cheerful mood so he was just grateful she wasn’t being difficult. 

She was sitting by the window, dressed for the day, not a hair out of place. “Mr. Blake, how nice to see you.” 

“Good morning, ma’am.”

“I just got a letter from my daughter, Julia.”

“Good for you ma’am. Good news I hope.”

“She just got into the CIA. That’s the Culinary Institute of America, not the other one. It’s one of the best cooking schools in America. She’s going to make a fine chef.” 

Infinity had taken the time to locate Julia Reed’s cooking show. Miss Martha had been right. The channel was a local one but the show had been really interesting. She’d not only shown them how to make the dish but had explained the whys and wherefores 

“Yes ma’am, I’m sure she will be.” 

Scene destroyed chem set (before throw food) (Tues lunch)

 

Scene: science award, possibly Julia upset, you ruined my life teenage angst. Sister married by then; award happens as Bev going through a divorce which means Julia older than a teen, just starting out as a chef. Bev upset. This is where she says she only ever wanted to weld on gate, one small gate. (Thurs dinner)

Scene: letter from fiancé (Fri breakfast)  
When he went to bring her down for breakfast, Infinty found her crying. “Mrs. Dowd? You alright?”

She was waving a piece of paper about. “How could he do it?”

Infinity couldn’t see the paper well but it seemed to be Penelope’s list of meals. “Who did what, ma’am?”

“Ed, how could he write such things?”

“Well, I’m not sure ma’am but wouldn’t you like to get down to breakfast?”

“Did you even read it? Did you?”

“Well, no ma’am.”

Mrs. Dowd held the paper as if reading. “I don’t know why you went and took that welding job. I thought you were getting along well as Mr. Miller’s secretary. I understand that with all the men overseas that women need to take on the harder work but I don’t want to come home and find my best gal’s hands all roughed up.” She looked up at Infinity. “Roughed up? This is the first worthwhile thing I’ve done in my life. How could he say something like that to me?”

“I’m not sure ma’am. Would you like to come down to breakfast?”

She turned her head away and stared out at the rain pattering down the window. “I’m not hungry.” Nothing he said to her could get her out of the room. 

Scene: laid off, throwing food (fri lunch)  
After breakfast Mrs. Dowd generally moved into one of the lounges for the day, but Infinity couldn’t find her at all on the first floor. Finally, figuring that maybe since she’d skipped breakfast, she hadn’t left her room at all, he went up to check and found her there, still in bed, looking about as ornery as a polecat. “Mrs. Dowd?”

“Go away.”

“I’m here to take you to lunch.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Go away.”

“Now come on, ma’am. You missed breakfast. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Leave me the hell alone.”

“Now ma’am, there’s no call for such language.”

She picked up her cup and threw it at him. Water leaked down from where the cup had crashed against the wall. “Get out.” Her words were a shriek. 

“Now ma’am.” 

The water pitcher came next. Infinity ducked into the hall. Getting stuff thrown at him, even if Mrs. Dowd couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, was definitely above his pay grade. He found Consuela in her office and explained the situation.

“She hasn’t left her bed at all?”

“Not so far as I can tell, ma’am.”

“Well, we do prefer to encourage the ambulatory patients to get up and about, but sometimes they do have bad days. You go ahead and bring Mrs. Dowd her lunch, but let me know if she goes more than two days without getting up.”

By the time Infinity made it to the cafeteria, most of the ambulatory patients had already been served. He picked up a tray and started loading on food. “Infinity,” said. “Don’t tell me you’re trying my green beans. I thought you hated vegetables.”

He shrugged. “I’m making up a tray for Mrs. Dowd. She’s not coming down today.”

“Oh, well, if it’s for Bev, you take those carrots right off. She can’t stand the things.” > took the tray from him and loaded it up with food. “There, that’ll do her fine.”

He could hear Mrs. Dowd from the far end of the hall. She was sure mad about something. She takes tray and overturns it, spilling it across bed and floor. 

Scene: confesses to Infinity that she deliberately destroyed chem set (Sat breakfast)

 

Scene: reconciliation with Julia, old man say won’t last, Infinity disagree (Sat morning)

Scene: back to start for Mrs, Dowd (Monday breakfast)


	3. 1.3

The woman in 203 creeped him out. With that thought, Infinity heard Dr. Anderson’s soft contralto correcting him. “Don’t dehumanize the patients, Infinity. She’s more than a room number. Use her name.” Except that the psychiatrist wouldn’t have said patients. She called them residents. 

Fine. Mrs. Dowd creeped him out. Infinity didn’t actually dislike her. It was more like he felt sorry for her although, truth be told, he didn’t like being around her. He never knew whether she’d recognize him or not. Being mistaken for her father or her husband, that was bad enough, but being called Julia or Donna, well, that was downright disturbing. As he stepped into the room, Infinity felt as if he were facing a monster, a zombie maybe, but all he saw was a frail old woman, dressed for the day in a blouse and pants, sitting in her chair by the window. 

“Julia, is that you?” 

“No ma’am. I’m an orderly. They sent me to bring you down to breakfast.”

The third time that Mrs. Dowd had gotten lost on her way to the cafeteria, Consuela had decreed that the old woman was to be … escorted was the term she’d used … to and from meals. When he and Ramon had tossed for it, Ramon had won, leaving Infinity stuck making sure Mrs. Dowd got to the cafeteria on time.

“Julia.” Mrs. Dowd went on as if he hadn’t just identified himself. “You get that nasty chemistry set off my table. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, I won’t stand for that nonsense in my dining room. All those poisons and vapors right where we eat. Are you trying to kill us all?”

Infinity eased the wheelchair up next to Mrs. Dowd. The old lady could walk but it was faster to push her along.

“I don’t care if your Aunt Donna did give that set to you. It’s not as if you’ll ever really understand it. Science just isn’t for girls. And anyway, what good did science ever do for Donna? It didn’t help her find a husband, now did it? You want to end up an old maid? You go put that junk away and I’ll teach you to make a proper chocolate mousse.”

“It’s me, Mrs. Dowd, Infinity Blake. I’m here to take you to breakfast.” Even though he was running late, Infinity tried to orient the old woman. He’d found it was quicker to ease her out of her delusions before getting her to move. 

“What? What?” Even though she’d been living there for three months, when Mrs. Dowd glanced around, she looked lost, as if she’d never seen the room before. He waited as she got her bearings. “You’re that Blake boy.” She never called him Infinity even though she was perfectly happy to call the rest of the staff by their first names.

“Yes ma’am.”

As he pushed her through the hall, she complained about the menu. “What kind of nonsense is that? Offering chocolate mousse at breakfast.” Infinity didn’t bother telling her that chocolate had never been on the breakfast menu. Most likely she’d have forgotten by the time they’d made it downstairs.

Just outside of the cafeteria, Infinity stopped to let Mrs. Dowd out of the wheelchair. Unfortunately he didn’t manage to whisk the chair out of sight fast enough. “Mr. Blake.” Consuela had seen the wheelchair. 

“Ma’am.”

“I know you were told in your employee orientation that ambulatory residents must be encouraged to walk. I explained it to you myself. We don’t want any of our residents losing their abilities sooner than they have to.”

“Well, you see, I’d been working on the plumbing in 217 and it was getting late and I didn’t want Mrs. Dowd to miss out on breakfast completely.”

“Penelope will hold breakfast until everyone has eaten.”

“Yes ma’am. That she will.” And she wouldn’t precisely bitch about it afterwards, but she’d sure make it known that she resented having to wait. 

“So why was the wheelchair necessary?”

“Uh, I guess it wasn’t, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

“Let’s see that it doesn’t.” 

As Infinity pushed the wheelchair back to the storeroom, he could hear Mrs. Dowd complaining from the cafeteria. “What do you mean there’s no chocolate mousse?”

***

Infinity, unexpectedly, did not have to escort Mrs. Dowd to lunch. About an hour beforehand, he found Miss Abby and Miss Martha peering through the curtains out onto the wraparound porch. They didn’t look much like sisters - Miss Abby, shorter and fatter than her lean sister, had dark hair to Martha’s blonde - but he never saw one without the other. “Isn’t that nice, how Julia visits her mother each weekend,” Miss Abby was saying.

“Oh, yes, it is awfully good of her to take the time. I don’t know how these young people do it all: working, raising children, and caring for the home. I’m sure we were never that busy.”

“But that’s not true at all, Martha. We had our little charities. They kept us plenty busy, I’m sure.”

“Well, if you say so.”

When Miss Abby turned and saw Infinity, she exclaimed with delight. Both of the sisters seemed to be delighted by pretty much everything. “Infinity. How are you dear boy?”

“Uh, fine Miss Abby.” Through the window he saw a woman sitting with Mrs. Dowd. They looked a lot alike but the new woman was at least twenty years younger. She wore jeans but they looked like the kind of jeans that cost a lot, which suggested where the money for Mrs. Dowd’s room came from. The gossip around the manor was that she didn’t have all that much herself. 

“We should let them have their privacy.” Miss Martha took his arm and led him away from the window as if she and Miss Abby hadn’t just been peering out at them.

“I know it’s natural to be curious about famous people, dear, but it’s rude to stare.”

“Famous?” Infinity asked.

Miss Abby, just about to join her sister on the couch, stopped and stared at Infinity. “You haven’t heard of Julia Reed?”

“Now Abby,” Miss Martha said. “It’s not like when we were girls. Not everyone knows everyone else.”

“But she’s famous,” Miss Abby replied. “She’s got that cooking show.”

“Cooking show?”

“It’s not even on the television,” Miss Martha said. “There’s that web thing you children are always going on about.”

“It’s called the Internet, dear” Miss Abby replied. “Julia, she’s a chef, and she’s working with, oh what was that woman’s name? Dr. Dianne, um, well I don’t quite recall, but Julia whips up the dishes and Dr. Dianne explains the science behind the cooking. The banter between them is delightful, much more interesting than that trash you see on cable nowadays.”

“And she,” Infinity asked, “Julia, she’s Mrs. Dowd’s daughter?” Was this the Julia that she’d mentioned earlier, the one with the chemistry set on the kitchen table?

“Well of course, dear. She visits every weekend. Haven’t you seen her before?” 

That dark hair cut into a bob did look vaguely familiar, but that was all. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been busy enough getting oriented to have to add recognizing all the guests on top of that. “Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Well there you are.”

If that Julia was the one with the chemistry set, why wasn’t she explaining the science on that cooking show? It didn’t seem like something the sisters would know. 

***

When Infinity had started working at Ravenwood Manor, he’d been told that he, as the low man on the totem pole, might end up working both days of the weekend, but it turned out that Ramon wanted to work Sundays. “Church with my mama, papa, three sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins?” Ramon had told him later. “No way, man. I’d rather be here even if it does mean working.”

On most of Sunday and well into Monday afternoon, Infinity had time to play World of Warcraft because he was started that week with what was called the evening shift even though it started well before the sun had set. As he jogged up the porch steps, he saw Mrs. Dowd sitting well past that old coot, Duncan. She was talking to, well, herself as far as Infinity could tell. 

“Donna, Donna, guess what. I got that job as a welder. You know, the one my friend Mary was talking about, and it’s fantastic. I’m actually welding together pieces that’ll be parts of ships. I’m really making a difference for the war effort. You should come work with us. They’re always looking for more welders. Mary drives us in and there’s one more open seat in her car.”

Infinity had stopped to stare. He’d seen her mistake people for someone else before, but he’d never seen her talking to the air as if there were someone there. After a pause, as if she’d heard a response, Mrs. Dowd went on. “Graduate school? Physics? Donna, women don’t go to graduate school, much less for something like physics. You’ve been there long enough to get your M.R.S. degree. I mean, you don’t have a fella yet but that’s because they’re all overseas. What good’s more college gonna do you? Come work with me at the factory. The pay’s good, better than that small change we got as secretaries and certainly better than anything you’ll be making as a student. Do they even pay you for that or are you just building up more debt? Come work with me as a welder. You can build up your savings and go back to college later, if you really want to.” 

She paused again, but briefly, not even long enough for someone to have replied, but she went on as if someone had. “Opportunity? What do you think you’ll do with a Ph.D. in physics for God’s sake? Welding, now that’s a real job. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to look at something knowing I’d made it. Someday I’m gonna make a gate, a little iron gate, and maybe I’ll go into business myself welding on residential properties after the war.”

“She never got to work on that gate.”

“Huh?” It had been Duncan who’d spoken.

“That Mrs. Dowd,” Duncan continued. “She’s always going on about that gate she wanted to weld. ‘One little gate’ she says. She never got the chance. Once the boys came home from the war, well, the ladies weren’t needed at the factories. A lot of ‘em were upset about it but I can’t see why no how. What’re women gonna do outside of the house anyway? Better for ‘em to stay home and raise babies. They start in on men’s jobs and then what do you got? All these kids today who run around playing video games all the time and don’t hardly have a life at all ‘cause their mommas were too busy working to raise ‘em. That’s what you get.”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Ah, what do you know?” The man turned his back to Infinity and didn’t speak again.

“Well, Donna,” Mrs. Dowd was saying. “If you want to waste your time with science, I’m not going to be the one to stop you. I think it’s a foolish notion, I sure do, but you’re going to do what you want no matter what.”

“Infinity.” Oops, that was Consuela from inside the manor. “Get a move on. You’re going to be late for your shift.”

“Yes ma’am.” Infinity dashed through the door, leaving Mrs. Dowd and Duncan behind.

***

By dinnertime that evening, Mrs. Dowd was herself again and Infinity had no trouble with her. The next morning Infinity, low on sleep from having to come in eight hours after he’d gotten off, wasn’t so lucky. She knew who he was, at least, but she didn’t seem to know not where but when she was. 

When he went up to fetch her, without a wheelchair this time, she was sitting by the window, dressed for the day without a hair out of place. “Mr. Blake, how nice to see you.”

Oh, good, this was going to be an easier day. “Good morning, ma’am.”

“I just got a letter from my daughter, Julia.”

Infinity suppressed a yawn. He’d been running late and hadn’t had a chance to grab coffee. “Good news I hope.”

“She was just accepted at the CIA. That’s the Culinary Institute of America, not the other one. It’s one of the best cooking schools in the U.S. She’s going to make a fine chef.”

On Sunday, when he’d had the whole day off, Infinity had looked up Julia Reed’s cooking show. It had been as entertaining as Misses Abby and Martha had said. Mrs. Reed had taken a cheaper cut of beef and had left it sitting in salt all day so it’d be more tender after she’d cooked it. The other woman, Dr. Dianne, had said something about the salt dissolved the muscle and made it easier for enzymes to break down, but Infinity hadn’t really been interested enough to follow what enzymes had to do with anything. Still, he’d thought it was pretty cool finding tricks to make food taste better.

It was a bit strange, after seeing that show, to realize that Mrs. Dowd knew who he was but didn’t realize her daughter was already a chef. “I’m sure she will, ma’am. You ready to go down to breakfast?”

“Oh, of course, dear.”

It was a bit odd, her mind being in some other time about her daughter like that, but as long as she wasn’t giving him any trouble, Infinity was okay with it.

***

At lunchtime, Infinity didn’t have to go searching for Mrs. Dowd. A ruckus from the second floor common area had drawn not only the two nurses on duty but Consuela as well. During Infinity’s first week on the job, Ramon had told him the color of the room, a soft and pale blue, had been chosen for its calming effects. The room, or more precisely the residents in the room, were anything but calm. In the center of the room, Vinny and Charles were circling each other, fists raised as if ready to fight. “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?” Vinny said as he jabbed in with a punch. 

“You want to play rough, sir? Fine by me. Say hello to my little friend.” Apparently Charles’ friend was his fist because with that he punched back. Catching Infinity’s stare, Charles grinned and seemed to wink before he and Vinny really got into a volley of punches.

Consuela shouted for him and Ramon to break it up. Infinity glanced between her and the two men. Break that up? How? But Ramon stepped right in. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Must I remind you there are ladies present?”

Ladies present seemed like an exaggeration to Infinity. One of the women was screaming curses as a nurse led her out of the room. Two other women were shouting at each other. A third, sitting, seemed equally fascinated by both them and Mrs. Dowd who seemed to be talking to herself. However, Ramon’s invocation of the ladies seemed to have worked. The two men stepped apart willingly enough. “Pistols at dawn, sir?” Charles asked. 

Vinny scratched his nose as he looked up at the other man. “Out behind the greenhouse, there’s an empty field where we wouldn’t be disturbed.” The two men stepped off to one side and turned to watch, grinning as if enjoying a show.

“Infinity.” Consuela called out, “you calm down Mrs. Dowd. Ramon, you’re on Mr. Kritsky.”

For once Infinity was glad to be handling Mrs. Dowd. Kritsky, striding around the room and waving his cane in the air, had been a boxer in his day. Infinity figured the old man could get some strikes in if he had a mind to. Mrs. Dowd was mostly just sitting there, well that and shouting obscenities herself. 

“Who the hell does he think he is? Firing me.” Mrs. Dowd pitched her voice so low it sounded as if she were mocking a male speaker. “I’m not firing you, little lady. All the ladies are being let go. Now that the men are back from the war, well, they need the jobs to take care of their families. You can understand that, can’t you? Once you start having babies, you’ll want your husband to have a good paying job, right? That can’t happen if you women are clogging up the works.” Her voice shifted back to its normal pitch. “Well, damn you to hell and back. Not a job for a lady? I was the best damned welder you’d ever seen, and you just let me go to make way for some son of a bitch man?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch, tearing off obscenities so fast that Infinity could barely even follow. 

“Mrs. Dowd. It’s almost time for lunch. Don’t you want your lunch?” He grabbed her arm to try to pull her to her feet.

She pulled a knitting needle from her knitting bag and stabbed at him. Good thing the old woman didn’t have much strength in her arm. It didn’t even nick the fabric but Infinity stepped back all the same. She stood there growling like a wild thing until one of the nurses, Dolores, grabbed Mrs. Dowd from behind.

“Don’t stand there, idiot. Go grab a wheelchair. I can’t hold her all day.” 

Infinity wasn’t sure how Dolores was holding her at all. Mrs. Dowd may have been frail but Dolores was tiny, under five feet. Luckily there were a few unused wheelchairs right there in the room. Infinity helped Dolores strap Mrs. Dowd in with a buckle across her waist. “Get her out of here,” Dolores shouted. “They’re all setting each other off. We need to separate them.”

By the time Infinity had pushed her to her room, Mrs. Dowd had stopped struggling. She was crying, heavy sobs that seemed to come from deep within her soul. Infinity approached her carefully to unbuckle the belt. She didn’t seem to know he was there and he wasn’t sure what to do about the crying. Leaving the sobbing woman behind, Infinity ran back to the common room to see what he could do there.

Vinny and Charles were walking down the hall, chatting amiably as if they hadn’t been about to kill each other just minutes before. Ramon was trailing after as if he’d been set to keep an eye on them. “What was that?” Infinity asked.

“Ah, the old folks. Sometimes one of them gets upset, starts yelling, and that sets them all off.”

“Should we …” All the shouting had stopped. He heard sobbing coming from some of the rooms but nothing else outside of Vinny waxing on about Vegas. “Are they gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” Ramon replied. “After that much excitement, they’ll all sleep the afternoon away. Most of ‘em won’t even make it to dinner. Easy job for the next shift. Lucky bastards.”

As Vinny and Charles split up at the end of the hall, Charles turned and waved cheerily at Infinity and Ramon. “What was that?” Infinity asked.

“Ah, those old guys. They like to mess with us. Don’t let them get into your head.” 

***

Infinity hadn’t been thrilled to learn he had to work the night shift on Thursday, but he was also being given the two days around it off so at least it wouldn’t mess up his sleep schedule too much. He’d figured he could at least get a break from what Dr. Anderson referred to as socialization but it didn’t work out that way. In the wee hours of the morning, he found Mrs. Dowd wandering the halls, waving, in one fist, a crumbled piece of paper. She was crying. Infinity sighed as he thought of the two others assigned to the night shift. Another orderly and the nurse were watching soap operas in the break room. If Infinity ignored this, it wasn’t likely either of them would find and help the old lady. “Mrs. Dowd? You okay?”

When she looked up, he couldn’t tell if she recognized him or not. Waving the paper, she hollered, “How could he?”

“Um, I don’t know?” She looked more hurt than angry, which was good. Maybe she’d be easier to handle. “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable in your room?”

“Look at this. Look at this!” She straightened out the paper and held it before him. Infinity saw Penelope’s menu plan, a list of meals for the week. Mrs. Dowd couldn’t still be going on about that chocolate mousse, could she?

“I’m not sure why you’re showing me this, ma’am.”

“Why?” She looked like a child, hurt and shocked that she couldn’t find comfort. “This is why.” She stabbed a finger into the middle of the paper and continued on as if she were reading out the words. “Bev, honey, what did you go and do a damned fool thing like that for? Welding? That’s no work for a lady. I don’t know why you gave up on that secretarial job. I’m sure Mr. Johnson would give you your job back if you asked nicely. I know we all have to make sacrifices for the war effort, but the thought of your delicate hands doing the grunting work of a man, it makes me sick. I told Jimmy - the guy we call Donkey because he’s so stubborn - about it the other night, and he said I was going to find myself engaged to a she-man if I didn’t watch out. You don’t want to embarrass me in front of the guys, do you honey?”

Infinity stared down at his feet, wishing he’d left the old woman for someone else to find. 

“Oh, Ma, don’t you see?” Infinity winced. She thought he was her mother? “I’m making a difference, helping with the war effort, protecting our boys on the front. I’m finally doing something worthwhile and all Ed sees is that my hands might get roughed up. It’s like he doesn’t see me at all.”

“Um, ma’am. I’m not your mother. I’m one of the orderlies at the home. Why don’t we get you back to your room?”

“Ma, not you too! You think I want to sit around typing memos for men too cowardly to be on the front lines when I could be building aircraft that’ll help bring our boys home?”

Infinity put one hand on Mrs. Dowd’s back and started leading her to her room. “Maybe you should go back to bed. I’m sure it’ll all seem better in the morning.”

“If he thinks I’m giving up my job for busy-work, he’s got another thing coming.”

Mrs. Dowd kept muttering but at least it was more to herself than to Infinity. While she refused to get back into bed, she at least was willing to sit in her chair by the window. Infinity left her in the room and wondered if he could get one of the others to do the next round. It seemed unlikely. They were too caught up in their soap operas to want to leave the break room and in an hour he’d be bored enough to want to do the walk-around again. 

***

On Saturday morning, even before his shift started, Infinity was thrust into an emergency repair. He wasn’t sure what the old codger in 317 was doing to block up the toilets so regularly, but Infinity definitely wished someone would figure it out and stop it. 

He was only a little late getting around to bringing Mrs. Dowd down for breakfast but it was going to be one of those days. She was still in bed, sitting up, but crying. “Mrs. Dowd, you ready for breakfast?”

“No,” she hissed. “I’m not ready for any damned breakfast.”

Right, one of those days. Sometimes the residents got sedated when they got too worked up. He wondered if this counted. “You want something to help you relax?”

He laugh wasn’t one of delight but one full of anger. “Right. No more than I deserve to be drugged into a stupor.”

Stupor? Infinity hadn’t been thinking of it like that. Why be sad if you didn’t have to be? “I could get you a glass of water,” he offered.

“I lied to her, you know.”

Lied? “Uh, no ma’am. I didn’t know that.”

“It was that damned chemistry set. I told her the dog knocked it over. That was a lie. I threw it out. I smashed every damned glass vial and dumped the chemicals down the sink. For weeks after I worried that I’d done damage to the pipes.”

Infinity felt his breath heavy in his chest. He should say something, he knew he should say something, but what?

“All I’d ever wanted was to weld one gate, to create one thing beautiful and lasting in this world, and I I couldn’t have that, why should Julia have her damned chemistry? I knew it was wrong of me, wicked, sinful, but I couldn’t stop myself, and afterwards there was nothing I could do. The set was broken, shattered beyond repair, and so I lied. God, to see her little face fall when I told her.”

She laid back down and turned her back to him. Infinity could hear her crying as he slipped quietly out of the room. 

***

That afternoon Mrs. Dowd refused to leave her room even for her daughter. Infinity, dragging a mop and bucket up to the third floor for a cleanup, found himself going out of his way to pass by the room. Now that he’d seen Julia Reed’s cooking show, he couldn’t help himself. He’d never been so close to anyone famous although, like Miss Martha had said, it was only a blog, not a real tv show. Still Julia - that’s how she was referred to on the show - did get up in front of the camera each week. Just the thought left Infinity feeling sick to his stomach. He wouldn’t want that many people watching his every move. 

He got a brief glimpse of the room on his way up to the third floor. “I brought those buckeye cookies you like so much.” Julia’s greeting sounded friendly enough but her smile was strained. On his way back, bucket of dirty water in one hand and damp mop in the other, he saw Julia pacing the room. Mrs. Dowd, staring out the window, didn’t even look over when her daughter started speaking. “You could at least talk to me, Mom. I make this trip, I come all this way, and you can’t even be bothered to open your mouth?”

After he’d dumped the water and put the bucket and mop away, Infinity saw Julia slam the front door behind her. She didn’t leave though. She stayed on the porch and lit a cigarette. He found himself following her out. Mrs. Reed - he couldn’t think of her as Julia now that they were face-to-face - didn’t seem to notice Duncan, who was standing at the far edge of the porch and gazing down the road as if that would bring his daughter to him sooner.

Mrs. Reed glanced at him but didn’t really seem to see him. “Parents,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Is your mother as difficult as mine?”

“She can be hard to deal with.”

“Tell me about it,” Mrs. Reed said as if Infinity had meant her mother rather than his own. “She’s got it in her head to be upset about something. Won’t tell me what. We only get to see each other once a week. You think she’d want to make the most of it but no, not my mother.”

“She’s upset about a chemistry set.” Infinity slapped a hand over his mouth. He could feel his eyes bugging out. 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Infinity wasn’t sure it was okay to talk about stuff the residents said, even with their families, but he’d already brought it up. “From when you were a kid. She’d told you it was the dog who’d broken it, but really she’d done it.”

Mrs. Reed stared and Infinity felt that she was really seeing him this time. “I’d forgotten about that.” Her words were slow but calm. “Is that all she’s worked up about?”

Infinity nodded but then recalled the other thing. “Well, that and some gate she never got to weld.”

“Oh Mom.” Mrs. Reed stared across the lawn before turning back to Infinity. “My mother has never been happy with her life.”

The initial shock of amazement - why is she explaining this to me? - gave way, surprisingly, to a feeling of sadness as he remembered the first time he’d seen Mrs. Dowd on the porch. She’d been excited about the job. Fantastic is how she’d described it. He couldn’t see explaining that to the woman’s daughter. “But you’re happy, right?”

“Of course I am.” She looked at Infinity as if he were crazy. “Well, I wish my mother didn’t have to live in a nursing home, but life’s good, overall.”

“That’s because you have a gift.”

Mrs. Reed startled, jerking her head to her left as if she hadn’t realized Duncan was there.

“One not given to everyone,” the old man continued. “Not everyone can take their lemons and make lemonade.”

“I should go back and check on her.” Mrs. Reed vanished into the manor. 

“It won’t help none.” Duncan said from the far end of the porch. 

“What do you mean?”

“That girl’s gonna rush back upstairs crying, ‘Oh, mommy, you didn’t ruin my life be being a spiteful, old witch.’ and there’ll be a big conciliation, hugs and kisses galore, but it won’t make a lick of difference.”

Infinity stood there and he felt awkward because he didn’t know what to say. The way Duncan looked at him, it made Infinity feel like a child, one too young to understand what was going on around him. “That old Mrs. Dowd,” Duncan continued. “Her brains are scrambled. An hour after that girl leaves, she’ll have forgotten all about this.” 

Infinity would never know how what Mrs. Dowd remembered an hour after hour daughter left. When his shift ended, Mrs. Dowd was still there. They looked happy enough, dunking brownies into coffee together, as he made one final pass by the room. He didn’t know what Mrs. Dowd did or didn’t remember on Sunday, either, that being his day off. But on Monday morning, she greeted him with, “Good Lord, girl, can’t you get that dirty chemistry set off my kitchen table? You trying to poison us all?”


	4. 2.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second draft from Julia's (daughter) PoV  
> Unfinished

Julia set the box onto the coffee table with a thump, fell against the back of the couch, and sat there staring at the odd thing. Although it was obviously made from some sort of compressed cardboard and was only a few hand-widths wide on any edge, the box mimicked an elaborate chest down to the decorative, faux-brass corners. A floral pattern, more cream than white, nestled against pale green leaves before a pink background. It was a girlish extravaganza of sentimentality for all that it belonged to Julia’s mother.

That letters that stuffed the box full were remnants of a life that had started before World War II. At the top, Julia found cards for the expected holidays - Christmas, birthday’s, Mother’s Day - from both her family, the Reeds, and her brother’s, the Dowds. Interspersed between the cards were announcements, blog posts mostly, for Pepper Mills and Test Tubes: The Science of Cooking with Julia Reed and Nancy Black. Julia paused to wonder who’d helped her mother locate, much less print, the posts.

Below decades worth of cards, she found letters. With a pang, Julia wondered when she’d stopped writing her mother. It was most likely after the first of her own children had been born. She’d never seemed to have any time once her own family had started growing. She’d withdrawn into her own life and she wondered if that wasn’t why her own mother was withdrawing into the past, but that was absurd. Dementia was a disease, not a running away from life.

With that thought, Julia turned back to the letters. Rummaging through the past might not cure her mother, but it could provide Julia with a temporary reprieve. Beneath her letters, down past school reports and childish drawings, beneath even the two birth certificates, Julia found letters from her father dated from the early 1940s, written while he’d been overseas for the war. One in particular stood out. It fell into four pieces when she picked it up. It had been ripped apart and repaired but the tape, so old, could no longer hold it together. Most of the letter was innocuous, some anecdotes about the other soldiers, a story about the cookies his mother had sent and how they’d shaken down to crumbs on the way over, and then the part that must have upset her mother: Bev, honey, what did you go and do a fool thing like that for? Welding? That’s no work for a lady. I don’t know why you gave up on that secretarial job. I’m sure Mr. Johnson would give you your job back if you asked nicely. I know we all have to make sacrifices for the war effort, but the thought of your delicate hands doing the grunting work of a man, it makes me sick. I told Jimmy - the guy we call Donkey because he’s so stubborn - about it the other night, and he said I was going to find myself engaged to a she-man if I didn’t watch out. You don’t want to embarrass me in front of the guys, do you honey?

Julia tried to picture her mother as a welder. The image just didn’t fit. Beverly Dowd had been the … she hated to say girliest but most most feminine just didn’t cut the levels her mother took femininity to. The woman had still worn skirts a good decade after the other mothers had switched to pants. Every sweater she owned had some kind of floral pattern to it. Julia had never seen her in anything more vibrant than pastels. If there had ever been a poster child for the idea that women shouldn’t intervene in men’s spheres, Mrs. Beverly Dowd would have been it. 

***

Even though she was mostly retired, Julia made it to the nursing home no more than once a week. She felt guilty, surely her mother deserved more of her time, but it was also a relief to have their visits limited to specific hours of a specific day. 

The same young woman who’d been at the reception desk the previous two Saturday’s was there that morning. A willowy young woman whose dark hair ran down below her shoulders, Sophia had been so thrilled to meet her favorite blogger that she’d shared her mother’s recipe. She buzzed for an orderly before asking “How’d that spanakopita work out for you?”

“Perfect,” Julia replied. “The extra butter definitely did the trick. I’ll have to feature it on the show. Think your mother’d be up for being on the ‘Net?”

“If she isn’t, I’ll do it.”

The young man, obviously an orderly based on the uniform, who answered the buzzer was someone Julia hadn’t met. “Infinity, this is Mrs. Reed. She’s here to see Beverly Dowd in room 203.”

The orderly, a young man who couldn’t be even twenty yet, just stood there staring.

“Mrs. Dowd,” Sophia prompted. “She’s probably not in her room but …”

“Hey, mamacita! What’s up?” The first time she’d seen Ramon, Julia had thought he’d been flirting with Sophia but it seemed he was that enthused to see everyone. “Hey, Mrs. Reed. My mother, she was checking out your cooking show and she said you got the flan all wrong. She’s never heard of anyone using lemon juice and it’s evaporated milk, not heavy cream.” 

“I’ll bow to her expertise,” Julia replied.

“She’s hear to see her mother,” Sophia interrupted. “Not hear yours dis her technique.”

“Oh, Mrs. Dowd’s out on the porch, or as least she was the last time I saw her.” It wasn’t until then that he seemed to notice Infinity. “Oh, hey man, is this your first time escorting a guest? Piece of cake. We just work out where the residents have got to and take their visitors over. As I said, Mrs. Dowd’s out on the porch. Come on, I’ll show you.” 

Infinity trailed behind them, about two feet back, and didn’t say a single word. Based on his behavior in the lobby, Julia figured he was naturally shy but perhaps he just couldn’t get a word in over Ramon. “So my mama, she learned to cook flan not from my abuela but from her own, great-grandmother that would be …”

Ramon had been right. Julia’s mother had taken advantage of the weather to sit outside. She was on the porch, rocking back and forth in a chair, but alone. Julia had hoped her mother would make friends at the home. 

As Julia took the chair next to Beverly, the two orderlies vanished back into the manor. 

“Mom, how’re you doing?”

Beverly’s eyes focused at the sound. “Julia?”

“Of course. It’s Saturday. I told you I’d be here.” 

 

“So, Mom, I was going through some old letters and I found something suggesting you’d been a welder?”

Julia had thought about how her mother might react to the question. Outright denial had seemed likely although not as likely as a reasonable explanation of how her father had perhaps become terribly confused. She hadn’t expected her mother to throw a teacup against the wall of the manor. “That fucking bastard,” Beverly shrieked.

“Mom!” While Julia had been certain her mother knew that swear words existed, she had never expected her to scream them out.

“Fire me, will he. I’m the god-damned best welder he’s got.”

“Mom, please, calm down.”

“Calm down! Donna, do you even get what’s happened to me? I’m losing my job. Nothing I can do’ll bring it back. I’ve been making in a day what I used to make in a week and now I’ve not only got to go back to that, but this is the only job I’ve had where I felt like I was doing something useful.”

Donna, her mother had called her. Donna was Bev’s sister, Julia’s aunt. So, it seemed like this welding job had been something real. Unless it was a delusion brought on by the dementia but, so far, the disease had shifted her mother’s thoughts to the past, not to inventing alternate pasts.

The orderly, Ramon, came running out the front door. “She just went off,” Julia said. “I don’t know what to do with her.” 

He bent down to clean up the tea. “She’ll probably get tired pretty quick. Getting angry like that, it’ll wear her out. I bet she’ll sleep most of the afternoon.”

“That’s okay,” Julia said. “She wasn’t really here today, not mentally. I’m not sure she recognized me at all.” 

They brought Bev back up to her room, and laid her down on the bed. Bev was asleep in less than five minutes after that.

Julia sighed. So much for her visit with her mother, and so much for her questions. It didn’t look as if Bev would answer them at all. 

As Julia was leaving, an old man on the porch approached her. “You Beverly’s daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s quite a ruckus she raised here this morning. You shouldn’t have brought up the job. The ladies, they had to give up their jobs after the men came back.” 

***

After the scene at the nursing home, Julia had turned to her aunt Donna. Meeting for lunch at Panera, Julia laid out her problem.

“Oh, yes,” Donna had said. “Bev worked construction during the war, welding. She was quite proud of it and tried to talk me into joining her but that’s when I was working on my graduate degree. I’m afraid I was luckier than your mother. After the war, she lost her job to returning men but my job was safe because they’d been fighting overseas, not studying graduate physics.”

“But, Mom? She won’t even pick up a screwdriver!”

Donna shook her head sadly. “That came after. You have to understand. She and the other women, they felt so terrific. They were helping the war effort. They were making good money for the first time in their lives. And the post-war boom, well, they thought that affluence would benefit them too. They felt like they’d been cut off at the knees, having to go back to traditional jobs. Your mother withdrew more than most.”

__


	5. 3.0 his relation with his mother

As he heard his mother clomping down the stairs to the basement, Infinity missed a strike and took a hit. “Shit.” Raising his sword, he blocked the next strike but he was off balance, on the defensive. The rustle of the bag as his mother wandered around the basement picking up trash didn’t help.

“It wouldn’t kill you to pick up around here.” 

In fact it might if he didn’t get his sword around in time. Damn, where’d the fourth orc come from? He was losing points fast. Ah, yes! Si Chua to the rescue. “Thank you,” Infinity muttered.

“I’ve told you not to leave food around. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of roaches?”

Infinity, focusing on making a dent in the orcs, breathed a sigh of relief as she stomped back up the stairs. His respite didn’t last long. When she came back down, he could see her, reflected on the computer screen, holding a basket of laundry. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to shift this load to the dryer once its done.”

There were only a few orcs left, but it was important to get them all.

“That’s what I thought.” 

Infinity wondered if her looks would improve with green skin and fangs, and he shuddered. Probably not. 

***

His mother was still angry the next morning so Infinity snuck out the door without breakfast. He could always count on Penelope to feed him. She was already in the kitchen chopping away at tomatoes from the garden when he arrived. For all that she was always complaining about her budget, the kitchen looked well-stocked as far as Infinity could tell. had a daughter who’d been really into marching band; died when bus overturned.> In window boxes, Penelope grew plants, what she told him were herbs: basil, oregano, and others he couldn’t recall. He hadn’t known you could grow that stuff. The only time he saw them was when his mother, rarely, brought a jar home from the store.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” 

“Morning.” Infinity nodded and went for coffee. She sounded like she might be in a mood, and it wasn’t good to get on her bad side when she was.

“Squeak. Squeak. You a little rat today?”

Infinity paused to ask before adding cream to his coffee. “Rat?”

“Rat boy. Not treating your momma right.” She waved the spoon at him. “I can tell. Only time you’re in here early for the morning shift is when you’ve been having an argument with your momma.”

He poured the cream and carefully returned it to the fridge. The one time he’d left the cream out, you’d have thought he’d burned down the place, Penelope had raised such a fuss. “Not a fight, not really. She was just yelling.”

“What’d you do to make her yell?”

Infinity didn’t get why Penelope had to take his mother’s side all the time. “I didn’t do nothing.”

“Nothing. Huh. That sounds about your speed. What didn’t you do that she wanted done?”

“Aw, she thought I should clean up the basement, as if I’m not picking up after people enough working here all day.”

Her dropped spoon hit the table with a clatter. “She works all day too. She comes home has to pick up after you, fix your dinner, take care of your laundry. You think that’s fair? She should be doing all that on top of her own job?”

Infinity took a swallow of coffee to give himself time. He’d never really thought about it. Mom cleaned and cooked. That’s what she did. He was pretty sure that answer’d piss off Penelope though. “I suppose not.”

“You suppose not?” She shook her head. “You are the most ungrateful child it has ever been my misfortune to run across.”

Infinity stared down at his cup, unsure what to say. I’m sorry didn’t seem right. He hadn’t done anything to Penelope. 

“You be good to your momma. You don’t know how long you’ll have her.”

Infinity wanted to say his mother wasn’t going anywhere, but he knew that wasn’t what Penelope meant. Penelope’s own daughter had died young when her school bus had overturned on the way back from some marching band camp, or so Ramon had told Infinity his first week in. Nothing like that was going to happen to his mom, but it wasn’t as if Infinity could say that in front of Penelope. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You think you’re so smart. You’ll see. One day you’ll see. You mark my words.

***

Friday had been a hell of a day. Ramon had called in sick and Consuela hadn’t gotten anyone into replace him, leaving Infinity doing both their jobs. On top of that, the old coot up in 314 had blocked up his toilet twice and had shouted at Infinity each time he’d gone in to fix it. Infinity didn’t know what a dillweed was but he could tell it wasn’t nice. Crazy old man. 

By the time he got him, all Infinity wanted to do was crawl onto the couch and kill orcs. Of course his mother had other ideas. She came at him with a list of chores a mile long. “I’ve got a date. Sam, he’s an assistant manager over at the Costco. They make good money over at the Costco. If he gets me in, I could be bringing home a good chunk of change. God knows we could use the money.”

“I thought it was a date.”

“It is a date! What’d you mean by that?”

“Well, you said he might give you a job.”

“And why shouldn’t he? Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean he can’t make my life a bit better. Maybe I could get you into Costco too. It’d pay a hell of a lot better than that cheap ass nursing home you’re working at.” She put the list down on the table > next to him. “You get that done, you hear? I want to make a good impression.”

As she stomped back up the stairs, Infinity glanced over at the list. Wash dishes. Vacuum. Sweep. Dust. Shit, he did that kind of crap all day. Turning back to World of Warcraft , Infinity promptly forgot about the list 

The next morning, he woke to find himself on the couch and his mother, still dressed in her bathrobe, standing over him shouting. “What the hell? It’s 10:45 AM and you haven’t even started on the list.”

Infinity sat up and tried to brush his hair into place. “The what?”

She picked up the paper and waved it at him. “The chores. You were supposed to get this place ship-shape. What the hell’s Sam going to think when he sees this trash dump?”

Infinity glanced around at the basement. It didn’t look that bad. Put that bag of Doritos away, toss out the empty cans of Coke, and move the bedding off the couch, and it’d look fine. 

“Oh, get upstairs and get start washing those dishes.”

After the dishes it was take the lint roller and get the cat hair off the couch, and then sweep the floor and vacuum the floor and put the dishes away. By 12:30, Infinity’d had enough. “Right, next I want you to dust the living room. Use the spray, not just a wipe; give it more than just a lick and a promise.”

Dusting? Infinity hated dusting. Those dust bunnies never stuck to the rag but always floated about the room and ended up on the floor, and then he’d have to vacuum again. “I got to get to work.”

“You what?”

“Work? You know, that job you wanted me to get? Shift’s gonna start. I have to get there.” The shift wasn’t due to start for two hours, but Infinity figured he could find something to do between now and then. He could head to the mall. There wasn’t time to check out a movie, but he could grab a snack or something at the food court.

“Well you can just call in sick. I told you last night to get started on this, and you are going to stay here until this house is clean.”

“I gotta get to work. I have a job and I’ve got to be there.”

“Fine, leave me holding the short end of the stick just like always. Get to your damned job! See if I get you a better one after this.”

***

Work was only marginally better. Mrs. Dowd was ranting, but at least listening to her was better than dusting. “I don’t know why I have to come home and then cook and clean on top of a ten hour day. You don’t see Bobby doing any work, and it’s summer too. It’s not like he’s going to summer school or anything. Let him help around the house.” 

***

As he lay in bed (couch?), staring up at the ceiling ,Infinity almost wished he didn’t have Sunday’s off. It wasn’t that he minded being able to stay home, but his mother’d been pretty pissed the day before. He really didn’t want to have to put up with a whole day of ‘why can’t you pull your weight around here?’

Still, it wasn’t as if he could stay downstairs all day. She’d moved all of his Dorito bags, even the three opened ones, someplace. Probably she’d thrown them out. Infinity shook his head as he sat up in the bed. It’s not as if one night of sitting open would ruin them. 

He decided to get dressed before heading up to the kitchen. If she did give him a hard time, at least he could duck out the door.

He could hear the tv on as he made his way up the stairs. Since the basement stairs came up at the junction where the hall between the kitchen and living room came together, there was no way he was getting out unnoticed. As he climbed the stairs Infinity wondered if he should even bother with breakfast or just head out and grab something for lunch. He didn’t get a chance to make a run for it. “Infinity.” At least she sounded cheerful.

“Mom?”

“How’s my boy this morning?”

She couldn’t be in too bad a mood or she’d be paying more attention to the tv than to him. “Okay I guess.”

“Work go well last night?” 

“Not bad. Old Mrs. Dowd, she was howling up a storm.” Of course she’d been upset that her brother hadn’t had to clean house. Maybe that wasn’t something he wanted to mention to his mother.

“That’s nice.”

Or maybe she’d be too blissed out to care. “Date go ok?”

 

***

 

***

Infinity knew his mother had a date. When he got in the door, close to midnight, he was surprised to see the lights on. He was also frustrated. It’d been a long day and the last thing he   
needed was to find his mother at home. Even worse, she was crying. He tried to dodge back out the door, but she’d already seen him. He stood there, standing in the doorway to the living room, staring as she wiped her tears away. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. I just, uh, got off work so I came home.”

Her laugh sounded bitter. “Of course you did because heaven forfend my son should have a life that might get him out of the house once in a while.”

That hardly seemed fair. He’d gotten off work at eleven PM. What was he supposed to do, run straight out after work? She knew he had the morning shift the next day. “Thought you had a date.”

Ooops, that was the wrong thing to say. 

***

As Infinity was heading out of Ravenwood Manor into a bright and sunny afternoon, he saw that Mrs. Reed had taken her mother out onto the porch. It was nice of her, to take the old woman outside, but unfortunately Mrs. Dowd wasn’t being nice back. She was having one of her spells.

“Julia, you get that chemistry set off of my dining room table this instant. All those poisons and vapors. You trying to kill us all?”

Infinity had seen Mrs. Reed put up with some terrible abuse from her mother, but apparently that afternoon’s rant was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She jumped up from her chair and darted to the far end of the porch. Infinity turned away when he realized she was brushing back tears. 

Mrs. Dowd kept rambling on about chemistry sets and the water supply, and Infinity picked up his pace. He had enough insanity from his own mother! 

Once the old woman’s rants were out of his hearing, Infinity wondered what it’d be like, getting yelled at for something he’d done more than a decade ago. It seemed like it might be a relief, knowing he didn’t have to worry about it, but there was something about his mother’s memories being like that old woman’s, just gone …. His mind skittered off from the thought. 

It was early. Maybe he could catch the new Avenger’s flick at the mall before heading home. 

***

He’d eaten at the mall so he’d be able to head down to his basement without stopping in the kitchen, but his mother’s gaze was glued to the tv set and there were two bottles of wine on the coffee table. 

Infinity walked past slower than he might have, wondering if he’d ever have to put her into a home. Would she know him when he visited? Would she yell or be glad to see him? Maybe a bit of both: sometimes happy, sometimes not.

when he heard something from upstairs. Pausing the game, he heard she was crying. Aw, shit! He hated when she did that. She knew it made him feel guilty, even when it didn’t seem to be his fault. Still, instead of starting the game up again, he turned it off and sat there, listening to her weeping. 

***


	6. Something Classy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually my July offering. Got bogged down and missed June's.

Infinity had never before cooked at home and by himself, without Pamela to watch for any mistakes. He couldn’t help grinning. Yeah, the grease was spattering all over in a way it hadn’t under Pamela’s supervision, but it was a burger and he was making it himself. As he cut into the meat, he could hear Pamela chastising. “Just use the spatula, idiot boy. The juices will tell you if it’s done.” The burger showed red in the middle. As he flipped it over, it fell into two pieces and he guessed he must have cut too far in.

He’d just finished moving the burger to the bun, picking up the pieces with his fingers because the spatula wasn’t working for him, when his mother came through the door. “God, I’m glad to be out of these heels.”

She said that every time even though she didn’t really need to wear heels to work. A lot of the other women wore flats and even dressy pants but Connie said that was just plain lazy. “You have to dress to impress if you’re going to get the promotion.” Not that she ever had. “County clerk jogs, they’re all rigged. You don’t get promoted on skill. It’s all who you know.” Infinity didn’t know about that but pull was sort of how she’d gotten her job in the first place. Grandpa, who’d been a cop, had talked to someone to get Connie the job. 

She came into the kitchen before changing out of her dressier work clothes although in stockinged feet, carrying her shoes in one hand. “When did you start cooking?”

Infinity shrugged. “Penelope’s teaching me.”

“Penelope? Who the hell’s that? Your girlfriend?”

Penelope? Girlfriend? “Just someone from work. The cook.”

“Oh, you’ve got a chef now. I guess your britches are too big for your own mother.”

Infinity folded his arms and hunched over the plate. “She’s not my chef. She cooks for the whole staff. I mean, if I’m working I get a meal. It’s part of the deal.”

“She couldn’t teach you how to cook for anyone else?”

“But I don’t gotta. I mean, I was just making some dinner.”

“And you didn’t think your poor mother, coming home from a long day’s work, might like to find dinner waiting?”

“Uh, you can have my burger. I can make another, for myself I mean.”

She looked down at the plate. “You expect me to eat that crap? Never mind. I’ll make my own meal.” She picked up the pan and slammed it back down on the stove. “Guess I gotta clean up around here too.” As she stormed out of the room, Infinity heard something about not wanting to get grease all over her good clothes.

He glanced a couple of times back and forth between the burger and the stove before deciding he’d better clean first. He’d just started pouring grease down the drain when she came back in. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to clog the pipes?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I was just trying to clean up.”

“Leave it.” He felt like he’d been frozen in place. She grabbed the pan from him and dropped it in the sink. It fell with a loud clatter. “I said leave it. I’ll do it just like I do everything around here.”

Infinity returned to his burger. It didn’t taste all that good but he ate it anyway. He didn’t want Connie yelling at him for wasting food.

***

Even though he’d been scheduled to work the early shift the next morning, Infinity got up to play World of Warcraft around midnight. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well get something useful done. He figured he could power up Brogan, his new white tiger, for an hour by letting it kill a few boars. That shouldn’t get him too caught up in the game. He should get in at least five hours sleep. 

Instead Infinity found himself hunting trolls. He hadn’t meant to, well, no, he had meant to. He’d sort of planned to wait until tomorrow when he’d have the whole evening to play but once he got online he couldn’t wait. He shouldn’t have brought the tiger though. Brogan died three times and he’d run of out meat after the second resurrection. The tiger was being a real pain, brushing up against him while he was trying to fight off the last of the trolls and Raagar took a serious hit. After he’d killed off the last troll, Infinity closed the game down. His mother’s pissy behavior had been enough. He didn’t need Brogan mad at him too.

The next morning Infinity managed to hide the worst of his exhaustion by grabbing a doubleshot on the way to work and topping it with a coffee in Penelope’s kitchen. “So, how’d you do with that burger?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“You guess? What’d you do, turn the heat too high? I told you the grease’d spatter.”

“No, well, yes, the grease did spatter but I didn’t much enjoy the burger. Mom came home and got mad at me.”

“What’d you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t my fault she expected me to make her a burger too.”

Penelope stopped whipping the eggs. “Tell me you didn’t.” 

“Didn’t what?”

“Tell me you didn’t make yourself dinner and not whip up any for your mama. Didn’t I show you how to make two burgers at once? What did you think I was doing there, whistling Dixie?”

Like he didn’t feel bad enough already. “What? She can cook.”

“That’s not the point. That woman works hard and you can’t even take the trouble to have a nice meal waiting for her when she comes home?”

“How do you know she works hard?”

“She’s a woman, ain’t she? That’s all I need to know. Do you have any idea how hard it is being a single mother? Get out of my kitchen you ungrateful cur.”

Infinity took the coffee with him. Geez, Mom had been mad enough. He didn’t need Penelope yelling at him too. It was almost like he had two mothers yelling at him.

***

Walking past the gazebo felt like running a gauntlet. The geezers couldn’t help but shouting, calling out that old age was hell and that Infinity should be grateful he didn’t have arthritis, a bad ticker, or even gout, whatever that was. Unfortunately it was time for Mr. Miller’s afternoon pills and Ramon, who was usually in charge of making sure the old man took his meds, was on repair duty after Consuela had caught on about the wheelchair races. 

Infinity kept a wary eye on the gazebo as he approached. Back when the Great Dame had held court, the women had all sat together in a group but since then they’d devolved into three or four cliques. Mrs. Rosedale, sitting in the most elaborate of the wicker chairs, the one that suggested a throne, spoke loudly as if trying to get everyone’s attention. “Do you know what that ungrateful sone of mine …”

“You told us at lunch, dear. They do say the memory is the first thing to go.” The second woman looked Mrs. Rosedale up and down before continuing. “After the looks.”

Mrs. Rosedale looked about ready to wrap her hands around the other woman’s throat. 

Mrs. Muir, sitting at Mrs. Rosedale’s right side, patted her hand. “Oh, don’t listen to her, Mabel. She’s just jealous because her kids don’t stop by at all.”

“Well,” Mrs. Rosedale said, apparently appeased, “all I know is that I wouldn’t treat a dog the way my son treats me.” 

“It’s these youngsters today.” As Mrs. Muir started in on youngsters, Infinity picked up his pace. It felt like all the old biddies had turned their eyes on him. “They have no manners, none whatsoever.”

“Don’t you know it. They have no respect for the trouble we took to raise them. They’re all just a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing hooligans.” 

Infinity averted his eyes and promised himself he’d go the long way around to get back to the mansion. These old biddy’s just didn’t remember what it was like to be young. There was no way anyone as nasty as they were ever spent time being nice to anyone else.

When he saw that Mr. Miller was playing cards with Vinny, Infinity stumbled. He’d long since decided that Vinny’s hit man story had been a joke, a way of teasing the new guy, sort of a hazing thing, but he still felt uncomfortable around the man. However, he couldn’t lay off handing over the medication just because of Vinny. “Mr. Miller? You forgot to come in for your afternoon pills.” 

“Didn’t forget. Don’t need ‘em.”

Shat, what had Ramon said to do if the geezer wouldn’t take his pills? Infinity didn’t think begging would cut it. 

“Tell you what,” Vinny said, his eyes on Mr. Miller as he shuffled the deck. “You pick one card. If I can tell you what it is, you take your pills and let the young man get back to work.”

Mr. Miller took some convincing but did agree. Vinny fanned out the cards and Mr. Miller took his time picking, almost choosing one but then moving onto another. Finally he drew one out of the deck. “The Mother Mary,” Vinny called out. “That’s the Queen of Clubs to you. Take your damned pills.” Mr. Miller threw the card onto the table and Infinity blinked in surprise. How had Vinny known?

After he’d swallowed the pills, Mr. Miller stormed off. Infinity wanted to follow but felt like he owed Vinny after the help. 

“I heard the fishwives giving you a hard time,” Vinny said with a nod toward the gazebo. “Thought you’d had enough trouble for one day.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.”

“That Mabel thinks she’s all that, doesn’t she? Styling herself as the next Great Dame, but if you ask me she’s more of a Great Dane.” 

Infinity felt awkward just standing there, but Great Dane? What was that supposed to mean?

“It was a joke,” Vinny said. “Like she’s a dog.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.”

“No better than bitches, the lot of ‘em.” 

“Tell me about it,” Infinity agreed. When Vinny nodded in agreement, Infinity felt encouraged to go on. “Going on and on about how their kids don’t do enough for them and acting like we’re all a waste of time or something. They sound just like my Mom, griping ‘cause I don’t wait on her hand and foot.”

Something in Vinny’s face got cold. “Now hold on, kid. Mothers are jewels, pearls of great worth and all that. You wouldn’t be disrespecting your mama, would you?”

“Uh, no! No, no, definitely not.”

Vinny relaxed back into his chair. “That’s good, that’s real good. Your mama’s a treasure, kid. You keep that in mind.”

“Um, sure.” Infinity wondered if he should say anything else. “I love my Mom.”

“That’s a good boy.”

“I’ve, uh, got to get back to work.”

Vinny waved him off. “Sure kid, you go on.”

***

Infinity promised himself he was never again hanging with Ramon the night before a morning shift. Sure, it’d been fun having a bud to see the new Avenger’s flick with, but then they’d gone for pizza. It seemed Ramon knew everybody and his brother. Not only that, he had to stop and talk to all of them too, saying just a minute but taking more like a good fifteen to twenty minutes. It was alright for Ramon, he didn’t have to get up early the next day. As it was Infinity figured he’d get maybe six hours sleep and that only if he skipped breakfast.

Ramon was nice enough to give him a lift home but it was still awfully late but, even from the walkway outside of his house, Infinity could hear the tv blaring. That was never a good sign. She sat on the couch with a pint of double chocolate fudge ice cream, almost certainly empty, on the coffee table. Infinity booked for the stairs, hoping she’d leave him alone if he got out of the way fast enough but as the blare from the Home Shopping Channel was replaced by silence, he knew he’d have to face her. “You’re missing South Park.”

Missing South Park? That was it? She was wrong anyway. Infinity didn’t have to check the time to know that the local channel that played reruns had already switched to Class of the Titans. “I’ve got the early shirt tomorrow.” 

She snorted and turned away from him. “Yeah? Well, don’t come crying to me when you sleep through your alarm and lose that crappy job. What the hell were you doing out so late then? Your loser friends couldn’t do without you?”

“I lost track of the time.” He wanted to go but it felt like they weren’t done. “I gotta get some sleep before work.”

“Sure, don’t worry about your mother. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

“Uh, night.” As Infinity escaped to the basement, he could hear the tv turning back on. He pulled the pillow over his ears and tried to sleep. 

***

After two more morning shifts, Infinity finally got a chance to sleep in. Getting up at one was nice but it would have been nicer if he didn’t have to get ready for work. As Infinity climbed the steps up to the manor, he saw Duncan sitting at his usual spot on the porch. As had become his habit, Infinity called out “Happy Thanksgiving” in passing. 

“Thanksgiving? What kind of a nimrod are you? It’s a 104 degrees out today and that’s in the shade.” 

Infinity had checked weather underground before leaving the house. Upper 80s was as high as it was supposed to get. “Oh, I’m, uh, sorry Duncan. Don’t know what I was thinking.” 

The old man didn’t respond. He was looking around like he was lost. “Where’s my Maisie? She’s supposed to be here. What is this place?”

If he didn’t get in the door, Infinity was going to be late, but the old man looked upset. Infinity patted at his shoulder. “It’s okay, Duncan. This is Ravenwood Manor. You live here and you’re daughter - uh, Maisie? - I’m sure she’ll be along any day now.”

Duncan batted Infinity’s hand away. “Maisie’s not my daughter.” He sounded scandalized, as if Infinity had said something outrageous. “What do you think you’re doing, harassing an old man? You just wait ‘till my daughter gets here. She’ll settle you.” 

The old man had gone all stiff upper lip, shaking as if holding back tears. Infinity backed into the manor, certain Duncan wouldn’t want anyone to see him crying. It didn’t seem right, that poor old guy waiting for a daughter who never came.

***

The last think Infinity wanted to do on his day off was spend it with his mother, but he found himself on the couch, Cheetos to hand, watching cooking shows. He wasn’t sure how it’d happened. He’d come up from the basement not too long before noon to find her having breakfast. 

“There’s coffee if you want it.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She smoked down the last of her cigarette while he put together cereal and milk. “That cooking show you like’s about to come on, the one with all the science talk.” 

At first he’d thought she was ragging on him but, no, she wanted to watch the show. Infinity agreed even though he wasn’t all that into the show. Well, he didn’t really hate it or anything, but he’d mostly been interested because one of the hosts, Julia Reed, was the daughter of one of the patients at Ravenwood Manor. 

Infinity, on edge since the vlog had turned to an Italian dish, wished he were anywhere but home. Once, when he’d been a bout seven, Connie had taken him out for Italian, not pizza but a real Italian meal. His spaghetti had ended up all over the waiter. He could still remember how her fingers had dug in as she’d dragged him out the door. She’d been almost crying on the way home, complaining that she couldn’t get even one nice meal.

“Why the hell is she using the water she cooked the pasta in for her cheese sauce? What, is she so poor she can’t afford another cup and a half of water?”

Dr. Dianne had said the pasta-water would help the cheese melt the right way but Infinity didn’t mention it. He hadn’t really understood the explanation and figured Connie didn’t really want to know. 

“I had an Italian meal once.”

Uh oh, here came the rant about he’d spoiled the only nice meal she’d ever had.

“Stuffed shells, garlic bread. Your father picked the wine. Best damned meal of my entire life. Never again have I ever had something so nice, so classy.”

Infinity sat very still. Italian food and his father? This wouldn’t go well.

“Two weeks later that bastard went back to his wife.” She ran to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Infinity bolted out of the house.

His feet took him to the gardens of Ravenwood Manor, which were empty. The old folks, too slow to make it inside quickly once the rain had started, had been driven inside by the threat of rain. Infinity had the paths to himself. A turn brought him to the edge of the gardens, to where he could see Duncan sitting alone on the porch. Something about the old man made Infinity feel uncomfortable. Connie was alone too, but that’d been her call, not Infinity’s. She’s the one who’d run to her room and, besides, she got to see him every day. It wasn’t like she was waiting all year for a visit. 

***

The room was full of packed boxes but it wasn’t as empty as Infinity’s great-aunt’s room had been that first time he’d been to Ravenwood Manor. That might have been because there were still paintings on the room, reproductions of great art, of Howard and Darlene’s, or just Howard’s now, walls. Howard had made it clear the the picture with the big waves and a tiny mountain in the distance was not Chinese but Japanese. The one of the girl, obviously European, lying on the couch under what looked like a blanket but was, according to Howard, actually a kimono wasn’t either Chinese or Japanese but painted by a Dutch artist. Infinity had forgotten the name. Even Infinity knew that Monet had painted the waterlilies. Still, the lack of emptiness in this room was probably because Infinity knew, or had known, the occupants. 

As Howard Sato finished taping the final box, Infinity wanted to ask if he really wanted to leave. He and Darlene had been so settled at Ravenwood and Infinity felt sad enough that Darlene was gone. He didn’t want to lose Howard as well even if the man wasn’t dying.

Howard must have read something on Infinity’s face. “I’m not running from memories of Darlene by leaving. I’ll miss her dreadfully no matter where I go. But we first moved here after her dementia had set in. So many of my memories from this place are of her not knowing me.”

That had been hard on the man. Howard had tried to hide it, but Infinity had come upon him crying a couple of times. He thought that was part of the reason he was so upset now. Howard had almost embraced the pain because it had given him more time with his wife. Infinity’d always just wanted to run when things got bad. “Where do you think you’ll go?”

“I want to revisit happier places, happier times and then move forward, visiting new places. I want to make thousands of memories to share with her and Bobby when we’re reunited in Heaven.”

As he carted boxes to the waiting truck, Infinity thought on Howard’s words. Bobby, their son, had died young, really young. Howard’s life had been hard but he’d risen above it. Yeah, he got upset but then he got past that and moved on, and he was nice, super nice, even to people who didn’t deserve it. Half of the old biddies who were always whining that their kids never visited had been making eyes at Howard since even before Darlene’s funeral. Not a one deserved Howard. He treated them as if they deserved respect. “They’re just lonely,” he’d told Infinity. “We all lose so much in life.”

Infinity figured that even Connie’d be making eyes at Howard if she’d ever met him. Or maybe not. Howard was a lot older. “They’re just lonely.” For the first time, Infinity wondered if his mother was lonely. She had no reason to be. He lived right there in the house with her, but between work and new friends he hadn’t been home as much lately and she had badgered him into watching that cooking show with her even though she didn’t really like it. 

For the rest of his shift, Infinity took on the odd jobs, the ones that didn’t really bring him into contact with anybody. Just as he was leaving, he paused by the door and then turned back. He found Penelope in the kitchen. “Could you teach me to cook something else?”

“Well, you’ve got sandwiches down and didn’t make too big a mess of burgers. I suppose I could show you how to roast a chicken. It’s not too hard.” She waved her spatula at him. “If you do it right, mind.”

“No, not something like that. I want to cook something for my Mom. I want it to be something nice, something classy.”


	7. All I Ever Wanted1.6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modified based on comments from writing group.

Infinity whipped around the corner so fast he almost crashed into the old man shuffling along the hallway. As Infinity took a step back, Duncan stopped, peered at Infinity keenly as if his mind weren’t mostly gone, and nodded his head toward room 203. “That old shrew, she’s loco, not in her right mind if you catch my drift.”

“Yes, sir.” Infinity’s response sounded fervent even to his own ears and Duncan glared at him suspiciously as if suspecting Infinity of mocking him. Infinity wasn’t. Mrs. Dowd, more gone than Duncan even, had obviously never been told if she didn’t have anything nice to say, she shouldn’t say anything at all. Still, Infinity didn’t actively dislike her. To tell the truth, he felt sorry for her, but he definitely didn’t like being around her. He never knew whether she’d recognize him or not. Being mistaken for her father or her husband, that was bad enough, but being called Julia or Donna, well, that was downright disturbing. As Duncan shuffled off, Infinity took a deep breath before entering the room. He saw a frail, old woman, sitting by the window and dressed for the day in a pale, pink blouse and tan pants. He knocked on the wooden frame of the door, not so much to tell her he was there as for luck. 

“Julia, is that you?”

“No, ma’am. I’m one of the orderlies. They sent me to bring you down to breakfast.”

The third time that Mrs. Dowd had gotten lost on her way to the cafeteria, Consuela had decreed that the old woman was to be escorted to and from meals. When he and Ramon had tossed for it, Ramon had won, leaving Infinity stuck making sure Mrs. Dowd got to the cafeteria on time. 

“Julia.” Mrs. Dowd started rambling on again, talking to this Julia as if Infinity hadn’t just identified himself. “You get that nasty chemistry set off my table. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times that I won’t stand for that nonsense in my dining room. All those vapors and poisons right where we eat. Are you trying to kill us all?”

Infinity eased the wheelchair up alongside Mrs. Dowd. The old lady could walk but he was running late and it was faster to push her along. 

“I don’t care if your Aunt Donna did give you that set. It’s not as if you’ll ever really understand it. Girls don’t get science. And anyway, what good did it ever do for Donna? It didn’t help her find a husband, now did it? You want to end up an old maid? You put that junk away and I’ll teach you to make a proper chocolate mousse.”

“It’s me, Mrs. Dowd, Infinity Blake. I’m here to take you to breakfast. You’re at Ravenwood Manor. Don’t you remember?” He wasn’t always able to orient the old woman, but Infinity did try. He’d found it was easier to ease the delusional ones back into the real world before getting them to move.

“What? What?” Even though she’d been living there for months, when Mrs. Dowd glanced around, she looked lost, as if she’d never seen the room before. He waited as she got her bearings. “You’re that Blake boy.” She’d never called him Infinity even though she was perfectly happy to call the rest of the staff by their first names.

“Yes, ma’am.”

As Infinity pushed her through the halls, Mrs. Dowd complained about the menu. “What kind of nonsense is that? Offering chocolate mousse at breakfast?” Infinity didn’t bother telling her that chocolate had never been on the breakfast menu. She’d most likely have forgotten by the time he’d rolled her down to the main floor.

In the main lobby, just down the hall from the cafeteria, Infinity stopped to let Mrs. Dowd out of the wheelchair, but he didn’t manage to whisk it away quick enough. “Mr. Blake.” Consuela had seen the wheelchair. 

“Ma’am.”

“I know you were told in your employee orientation that ambulatory patients must be encouraged to walk. We don’t want our residents losing their abilities before their time.” 

“Well, you see, I’d been working on the plumbing in 317 and it was getting late and I didn’t want Mrs. Dowd to miss out on breakfast.”

“Penelope will hold breakfast until everyone has eaten.” 

“Yes ma’am, that she will.” And she wouldn’t precisely bitch about it afterwards, but she’d sure make it known that she resented having to wait.

“Then why was the wheelchair necessary?”

“Uh, I guess it wasn’t, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

As Infinity pushed the wheelchair back to a storeroom, he could hear Mrs. Dowd complaining from the cafeteria. “What do you mean there’s no chocolate mousse?”

***

Infinity wasn’t exactly surprised that he didn’t have to take Mrs. Dowd to lunch. He knew the old woman had a weekly visitor, a daughter maybe. Sometimes she arrived early enough to take the old woman down to the cafeteria and other times not. It was always a relief when she did. 

About an hour before lunch, Infinity found Miss Abby and Miss Martha peering through the curtains out onto the wraparound porch. The two old women had almost the same face but otherwise didn’t look much like sisters: Miss Abby, shorter and chubbier, had dark hair to Miss Martha’s blonde. “Isn’t that nice, Martha, how Julia visits her mother each weekend?”

“Oh, yes, it’s awfully good of her to take the time. I don’t know how these young people do it all: working, raising children, and caring for the home. I’m sure we were never that busy.”

“But that’s not true at all, Martha. We had our little charities. They kept us plenty busy, I’m sure.” 

“Well, if you say so.”

Miss Abby turned then, saw Infinity, and exclaimed with delight. “Infinity dear boy, how are you?” As far as Infinity could tell, both of the sisters were delighted with pretty much everything. 

“Uh, fine MIss Abby.” Through the window he could see a woman sitting with Mrs. Dowd. They looked alike but the woman was at least twenty years younger. She wore the kind of jeans that cost a lot which suggested where the money for Mrs. Dowd’s room came from. The gossip around the manor was that she didn’t have much herself. 

“We should let them have their privacy.” Miss Martha took his arm and led him away from the window as if she and Miss Abby hadn’t just been peering out. 

“It know it’s natural to be curious about famous people, but it’s rude to stare.”

“Famous?” Infinity asked.

Miss Abby, just about to settle herself onto one of the wingback chairs, stopped to stare at Infinity. “You haven’t heard of Julia Reed?”

“Now Abby,” Miss Martha said. “It’s not like when we were girls. Not everyone knows everyone else nowadays.”

“But she’s famous,” Miss Abby replied. “She has that cooking show.”

“It’s not even on the television,” Miss Martha told Infinity. “It’s on that web thing you youngsters are always going on about.”

“It’s called the Internet,” Miss Abby said. “Mrs. Reed, that’s Mrs. Dowd’s daughter, Jula Reed. Well, anyway, she’s a chef and she shares a cooking show with, oh, what was that woman’s name? Dr. Dianne, um, well I don’t quite recall, but Julia whips up the dishes and Dr. Dianne explains the science behind the cooking. Their banter is quite delightful, much more interesting than that trash you see on cable these days.”

Infinity wasn’t sure what to say. Was this the same Julia that Mrs. Dowd had mentioned earlier, the one with the chemistry set? Whatever that rant had been about, it couldn’t have been recent so he doubted the sisters would know anything about it.

“Haven’t you seen her before?”

“Huh?” 

“Mrs. Reed,” Miss Abby said. “I was asking if you hadn’t seen her before. She’s here every weekend” 

The sisters had told him he shouldn’t stare, but Infinity risked a glance out the window. That dark hair cut into a bob did look familiar, but that was all. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been busy enough getting oriented to the job. “Um, yeah, I think so.”

“Well, there you are,” Miss Abby said as if that had settled something. 

So, Infinity wondered, if Julia had been the one with the chemistry set, why wasn’t she the one explaining the science on that cooking vlog?

***

When Infinity had started working at Ravenwood Manor, he’d been told that he, as the low man on the totem pole, might be stuck working both days of the weekend. He’d been relieved to learn that Ramon wanted to work Sundays. “Church with my mama, papa, three sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins?” Ramon had told him later. “No way, man. I’d rather be here even if it does mean working.”

So on Sunday and well into Monday, Infinity had time to play. He started the work-week with what was called the evening shift although it stated long before sunset. As he climbed the porch steps, Infinity saw Mrs. Dowd sitting about fifteen feet past that old coot Duncan. She was talking to, well, she was talking to herself as far as Infinity could tell. 

“Donna, Donna, guess what. I got that welding job. You know, the one Mary was talking about, and it’s fantastic. I’m welding together pieces that’ll be parts of airplanes. It feels great to be making such a difference for the war effort. You should come work with us. They’re always looking for more welders. Mary drives us in and there’s a seat available in her car.”

Infinity stopped to stare. He’d seen Mrs. Dowd mistake orderlies for people from her past, but he’d never seen her talking to the air. After a pause, as if she’d heard a reply, she went on. “Graduate school? Physics? Donna, women don’t go to graduate school, much less fro something like physics. What good’s more college going to do you? Come work with me at the factory. The pay’s good. I’m making in a day what I used to make in a week. It’s gotta be better than anything you’re bringing in as a student. Do they even pay you for that or are you just building up more debt? Come work with me as a welder. You can save your money and use it to go back to college later, if that’s what you really want.”

She paused again but briefly, not even long enough for someone to have replied, and then went on as if someone had. “Opportunity? What do you think you’ll do with a Ph. D. in physics for God’s sake? Welding, now that’s a real job. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to look at a wing and know I’ve made it. Someday I’m going to weld a gate, a little iron gate or maybe a big iron gate, and I might even go into business for myself welding on residential properties after the war.”

Infinity was so caught up by Mrs. Dowd’s reminisces that he jumped when a deeper voice spoke up. “She never got to work on that gate.” 

“Huh?” It had been Duncan who’d spoken.

“That Mrs. Dowd,” Duncan continued. “She’s always going on about that gate she wanted to weld. ‘One little gate’ she’ll say. She never got the chance. Once the boys came home from the war, well, the little ladies weren’t needed in the factories. A lot of ‘em were upset, but I can’t see why. What’re women ` do outside the house anyway? Better for ‘em to stay home and raise babies. They start in on men’s jobs and then what do you got? All these kids today who run around playing video games all the time and don’t hardly have a life at all ‘cause their mommas were too busy working to raise ‘em. That’s what you got.”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Ah, what do you know?” The old man turned his back on Infinity and didn’t speak again.

“Well, Donna,” Mrs. Dowd was saying. “If you want to waste your time on science, I’m not going to be the one to stop you. I think it’s a foolish notion, I sure do, but you’re going to do what you want no matter what.”

“Infinity.” He looked over to see Consuela, inside the manor, tapping at her watch. “You’re going to be late for your shift.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Infinity dashed through the door, leaving Mrs. Dowd and Duncan behind.

***

The next day started slowly but more than made up for it in the early afternoon. Shouting led Infinity to the second floor common area where Ramon just stood there watching as Vinny and Charles circled each other, fists raised as if ready to fight. “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite.” Vinny asked as he jabbed in with a punch.

Infinity could hear Mrs. Dowd shouting from the far corner but Charles’ words, roaring through the room, turned his attention back to the fight. “You want to play rough, sir? Fine by me. Say hello to my little friend.” His little friend must have been his fist because he punched back. Catching Infinity staring, Charles grinned and seemed to wink before he and Vinny really got into a volley of punches. 

And Ramon just stood there as if enjoying a show.

“Uh,” Infinity asked. “Shouldn’t we break it up?”

“Okay, but you get Mrs. Dowd back to her room.” Infinity glanced at the old woman but turned back to the fight. Sure the guys were old but they seemed to know how to fight. With vague thoughts of cop dramas and backup running through his head, Infinity stayed put. Raising both arms, Ramon stepped into the fray. Infinity winced, waiting for him to get hit. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Must I remind you that there are ladies present.” 

Ladies present was putting it kindly. Five of the old ladies, staring at the fight from their couches and chairs, were giggling like schoolgirls. Only Mrs. Dowd ignored the two men. As the fighting stopped and the two men started bickering, more quietly than before, with Ramon, Mrs. Dowd’s shouts took over the room. 

“Who the hell does he think he is? Firing me.” Mrs. Dowd pitched her voice down so it sounded like a man’s. “I’m not firing you, little lady. All you ladies are being let go. Now that the men are back from the war …”

“What? Never!” Charles bellowed. “Pistols at dawn, sir.”

You can understand that, can’t you?” Mrs. Dowd continued in a man’s voice. “Once you start having babies …”

“Dawn, eh?” Vinny replied. “Out behind the greenhouse …”

“Infinity,” Ramon shouted. “Get Mrs. Dowd back to her room.” 

“… can’t happen if you women are clogging up the works.” Mrs. Dowd’s voice shifted back to its normal pitch. “Well, damn you to hell and back. Not a job for a lady? I was the best damned welder you’d ever seen, and you want to let me go just to make way for some son of a bitch man?” As her voice rose into a shrill wail, Infinity froze, shocked that an old woman could tear off so many obscenities.

The two men were fighting again but Ramon raced to the door, grabbed a wheelchair, and ran back to the old woman. Infinity wasn’t sure how Ramon had done it, but the next thing he knew, Mrs. Dowd was in the chair. “Get her back to her room,” Ramon shouted. “All this chaos is setting her off.”

By the time Infinity had rushed Mrs. Dowd to her room, she had started crying, heavy sobs that seemed to come from deep within her. Infinity wasn’t sure what to do about the crying and, anyway, Ramon was alone with those two fighters. They could get hurt, jabbing at each other like that. Infinity ran back to the common area to see what he could do there.

He didn’t make it back to the common area. About three-quarters of the way back he turned a corner to find Vinny and Charles walking together and chatting amiably as if they hadn’t been about to kill each other. Infinity joined Ramon who was trailing after the two men. “Shouldn’t we?” Infinity gestured toward the two mean, unsure what he and Ramon should do. “Are they going to be okay?” he added. At least one of the old men must have gotten hurt with all those punches flying.

“Sure,” Ramon replied. “After that much excitement, all the old brujas will sleep the afternoon away. Most of ‘em won’t even make it to dinner. Easy job for the next shift, lucky bastards.”

“But the men, didn’t they, uh, hurt each other?”

Ramon grinned. “That was nothing, man. Mrs. Dowd, she started in on one of her screaming jags. You have no idea how much gossip goes down in a place like this. Charles and Vinny, they were just providing a distraction, giving the old brujas something else to think about until we could get Mrs. Dowd out.”

“So they weren’t fighting?” Ramon’s actions suddenly seemed less heroic. 

***

Learning he was stuck working the night shift on Thursday had been a drag but at least it’d give him a break from what Dr. Anderson referred to as socialization except it didn’t work out that way. In the early hours of the morning, long before dawn, Infinity found Mrs. Dowd wandering the halls and waving a crumbled piece of paper. Infinity sighed as he thought of the other two assigned to this shift, a nurse and another orderly busy watching soaps in the break room. He’d have to handle this himself. It wasn’t likely that either of the others would even notice, much less help the old lady. “Mrs. Dowd, you okay?”

Waving the paper at him, she hollered. “How could he?”

“Um, I don’t know?” She looked more hurt than angry and Infinity hoped that meant she’d be easier to handle. “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable in your room?”

“Look at this. Look at this!” She straightened out the paper and held it to his face. Infinity saw Penelope’s menu plan, a list of meals for the week. Mrs. Dowd couldn’t still be going on about that chocolate mousse, could she?”

“I’m not sure why you’re showing me this.”

“Why?” She looked like a child, one so hurt that she wouldn’t be comforted. “This is why.” She stabbed a finger into the middle of the page and continued on as if reading out written words. “Bev, honey, what did you go and do a damned fool thing like that for? Welding? That’s no job for a lady. I don’t know why you gave up that secretarial position. I’m sure Mr. Johnson would take you back on if you asked nicely. I know we all have to make sacrifices for the war effort, but the thought of your hands doing the grunting work of a man, well it just makes me sick. I told Jimmy - the guy we call Donkey because he’s so stubborn - about it the other night, and he told the other guys and now they’re making jokes about who’ll wear the pants in our family. Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the guys?”

Infinity stared down at his feet, wishing he’d left the old woman for someone else to find.

“Oh, Ma, don’t you see?” Infinity winced. She thought he was her mother? “I’m making a difference, helping with the war effort, protecting our boys on the front. I’m finally doing something worthwhile, and all Ed sees is that my hands might get a bit dirty. It’s as if he doesn’t know me at all.”

“Uh, ma’am? I’m not your mother. I’m one of the orderlies at the home. Why don’t we get you back to your room?”

“Ma, not you too! You think I want to sit around typing memos for men too cowardly to be on the front lines when I could be building aircraft that’ll help bring our boys home?”

Infinity put one hand on Mrs. Dowd’s back and started leading her to her room. “Maybe you should go back to bed. I’m sure it’ll seem better in the morning.”

“If he thinks I’m giving up my job, the first decent pay I’ve ever seen, he’s got another thing coming.”

Mrs. Dowd muttered all the way back to her room but at least it was more to herself than to Infinity. While she refused to get back into bed, she at least was willing to sit by the window. As Infinity left her room, he wondered if he could get one of the other night attendants to walk the next round. It seemed unlikely. They were too caught up in their soaps to want to leave the break room and, anyway, in an hour he’d be bored enough to want to get up and moving. 

***

Even before his Saturday shift had started, Infinity found himself working on an emergency repair. He wasn’t sure what the old codger in 317 was doing to block up his toilet so regularly, but Infinity definitely wished someone would figure it out. 

So he was late, but only a little late, when he stopped into Mrs. Dowd’s room. She was still in bed. “Ma’am, you really should get up now. You don’t want to miss breakfast.”

“No,” she hissed. “I’m not ready for any damned breakfast.”

Right, it was going to be one of those days. In the movies, orderlies could sedate patients. Infinity knew he wasn’t allowed but maybe one of the nurses would be willing to. “You want something to help you relax?”

Okay, and her anger-filled laughter wasn’t disturbing, not at all. “Of course,” she said. “It’s no more than I deserve, being drugged into a stupor.” 

Stupor? Infinity hadn’t been thinking of it like that. Why be sad if you didn’t have to?

“I lied to her.”

Lied? “Um, no ma’am. I didn’t know.”

“It was that damned chemistry set. I told her the dog had knocked it over. That was a lie. I threw it out. I smashed every damned vial and dumped the chemicals down the skin. For weeks after, I worried that I’d damaged the pipes.”

“Uh.” This was one of those things she wouldn’t remember, right? He could just walk away except he was supposed to bring her down to breakfast.

“All I ever wanted was to weld one little gate. If I couldn’t have that, whey should Julia have her damned chemistry? I know it was wrong of me, wicked, sinful, but I couldn’t stop myself, and afterwards there was nothing I could do to fix it. The set was broken, shattered beyond repair, and so I lied. God, the look on her little face when I told her.”

She laid down and turned her back to him. Infinity could hear her crying and slipped quietly out. Maybe Penelope’d be willing to put something aside for her to have later.

***

That afternoon Mrs. Dowd refused to leave her room even for her daughter. Infinity, dragging a mop and bucket up to the third floor, found himself going out of his way to pass the room. Now that he’d seen Julia Reed’s cooking show, he couldn’t help himself. He’d never been so close to anyone even semi-famous although, as Miss Martha had said, it was only a vlog. Still Julia - that’s how she was referred to on the show - did get up in front of the camera each week. Just the thought left Infinity feeling sick to his stomach. He wouldn’t want all those people watching his every move. 

“I brought those buckeye cookies you like so much. “ Julia’s greeting sounded friendly enough but, from what Infinity could see as he passed the room, her smile seemed strained.

On his way back, bucket of dirty water in one hand and damp mop in the other, he saw Julia pacing the room. Mrs. Dowd, staring out the window, didn’t even look over when her daughter started speaking. “You could at least talk to me, Mom. I make this trip every week. I come all this way, and you can’t even be bothered to open your mouth?”

After he’d dumped the water and put the mop and bucket away, Infinity saw Julia running out the entryway. The door slammed behind her but she didn’t leave. He could see her through the window, lighting a cigarette. He found himself following her out. Mrs. Reed - he couldn’t think of her as Julia once they were face-to-face - nodded at him as he came out but didn’t even seem to notice Duncan even though he was going on and on, and loudly at that, about needing fresh picked pumpkins, none of that canned crap, to make a decent pumpkin pie. 

“Parents,” Mrs. Reed said with a roll of her yes. “Is your mother as difficult as mine?”

“She can be hard to deal with.” 

“Tell me about it. I’m up here only once a week and my mother won’t even talk to me.” She took a drag of her cigarette and blew out the smoke. “This week I mean, she won’t talk to me this week. We were fine last week.” 

“She’s upset about a chemistry set.” Infinity slapped a hand over his mouth.

“She’s what?”

Infinity’s thoughts darted back through orientation. He wasn’t supposed to intervene. If you’re not sure, don’t say anything. That’s what he’d been told, but he’d already said something. 

“What do you mean? What chemistry set?” 

Mrs. Reed sounded insistent and Infinity didn’t feel like he could just leave it there. “From when you were a kid. She told you the dog had broke it, but really it was her.” 

“I’d forgotten that,” Mrs.. Reed said slowly. “Is that all she’s worked up about?” 

Infinity nodded but then thought of the other thing. “Well, that and some gate she never got to weld.” 

“Oh, Mom.” She slumped against one of the porch’s columns. 

“Now you see here, young lady.” Duncan started yelling and she stood to face him. “Your momma, she’s one unhappy woman. There’s nothing you can do about it. Some of us, given lemons, never work out how to make lemonade.” 

“But she can because she’s a chef,” Infinity blurted out. 

They each stared at him as if he were nuts and Infinity wished he hadn’t spoken. “It was a joke. A chef could take lemons and make them into lemonade.” Except maybe chefs didn’t make drinks.

Mrs. Reed broke the awkward silence. “I should get back to my mother.”

She vanished into the manor, leaving Infinity alone with the old man. “It won’t help,” Duncan said. 

“Huh?” 

“That girl, rushing back upstairs, crying ‘oh mommy, you didn’t ruin my life by being a spiteful, old witch.’ Sure, there’ll be a big conciliation, hugs and kisses galore, but it won’t make a lick of difference.” Under Duncan’s stare, Infinity felt like a child. He didn’t understand what the old man meant. “That old Mrs. Dowd,” Duncan continued. “Her brains are scrambled. An hour after that girl leaves, today’s dollop of endearment will become just a drop in the bucket of that old woman’s spite. She won’t remember nothing.”

Infinity would never know what Mrs. Dowd remembered an hour after her daughter had left. When his shift ended, Julia Reed was still visiting with her mother. They both looked happy enough, sitting together with cookies and coffee. He didn’t know what Mrs. Dowd did or didn’t remember on Sunday either, that being his day off. But on Monday morning, when he swung by her room, Mrs. Dowd greeting him with , “Good Lord, girl, can’t you get that dirty chemistry set off my kitchen table? You trying to poison us all?”

**Author's Note:**

> Next draft:  
> Infinity talks to someone who fills in the WW II background. Maybe that old man on the porch (first story)?


End file.
